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A   BRIEF   HISTORY 

OF  THE 

GREAT  WAR 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   .    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
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THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


0.^/. 


A   BRIEF    HISTORY 

OF  THE 

GREAT    WAR 


BY 


CARLTON   J.    H.    HAYES 

PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  IN  COLUMBIA.  UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR  OF   "A   POLITICAL  AND   SOCIAL 

HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE" 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1920 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1920, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  May,  1920. 


<^^i^^ 


GIFT 


PS3.\ 


TO 

THOSE  STUDENTS    OF    HIS    WHO    LOYALLY    LEFT  THEIR 
BOOKS  AND  PROUDLY  PAID  THE  SUPREME  SACRI- 
FICE IN  THE  CAUSE   OF  HUMAN  SOLIDARITY 
AGAINST    INTERNATIONAL     ANARCHY 
THE   AUTHOR    INSCRIBES 
THIS    BOOK 


M909074 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/briefhistoryofgrOOhayerich 


PREFACE 

The  following  pages  constitute  a  connected  story  of  the  late 
war  from  its  origins  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Versailles, 
not  for  the  edification  of  ''experts,"  military  or  other,  but  rather 
for  the  enlightenment  of  the  general  reader  and  student.  A 
"definitive"  history  of  the  war  will  never  be  written ;  it  is  much 
too  early,  of  course,  even  to  attempt  it.  All  that  the  author  has 
here  essayed  to  do  is  to  sketch  tentatively  what  seem  to  him 
its  broad  outHnes  —  domestic  poHtics  of  the  several  belligerents 
no  less  than  army  campaigns  and  naval  battles,  —  and  in  present- 
ing his  synthesis  to  be  guided  so  far  as  in  him  lay  by  an  honest 
desire  to  put  heat  and  passion  aside  and  to  write  candidly  and 
objectively  for  the  instruction  of  the  succeeding  generation. 

The  author  is  under  special  obligation  to  Messrs.  Dodd, 
Mead  and  Company  for  the  kind  permission  which  they  have 
accorded  him  of  drawing  freely  upon  the  articles  on  ''The  War 
of  the  Nations"  which  he  wrote  in  191 4,  1915,  and  191 6  for  their 
invaluable  New  International  Year  Book.  In  the  opening  chap- 
ter of  the  present  work  the  author  has  also  incorporated  a  few 
paragraphs  from  the  last  chapter  of  his  Political  and  Social 
History  of  Modern  Europe,  to  which,  in  a  way,  the  Brief  History 
OF  THE  Great  War  is  supplementary. 

Carlton  J.  H.  Hayes. 

Afton,  New  York, 
April  5,  1920. 


vu 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.    The  Great  War  Comes 

The  General  Cause :  International  Anarchy     . 

The  Immediate  Cause :  Germany     . 

The  Occasion :  The  Assassination  of  an  Archduke 

II.    Germany  Conquers  Belgium  and  Invades  France 
Mobilization  and  Strategy 
The  Conquest  of  Belgium 
The  Invasion  of  France    . 
German  Gains  in  the  West  —  and  Failure 

III.    Russia  Fails  to  Overwhelm  Germany 
The  Russian  Invasion  of  East  Prussia 
The  Russian  Invasion  of  Galicia 
The  German  Invasion  of  Russian  Poland 
The  Security  of  Serbia 


IV. 


Great  Britain  Masters  the  Seas 
Importance  of  Sea  Power 
The  Participation  of  Japan 
The  Conquest  of  the  German  Colonies 
Turkey's  Support  of  Germany 
Germany's  Counter-Offensive  on  the  Seas 

V.    The  Allies  Endeavor  to  Dominate  the  Near  East 
Allied  Optimism  in  the  Spring  of  191 5 
The  Attack  on  the  Dardanelles         .... 
Italy's  Entry  into  the  War 


VI.    Russia  Retreats 

Mackensen's  Drive :  The  Austrian  Recovery  of  Galicia 
Hindenburg's  Drive :  The  German  Conquest  of  Poland 
Revival  of  Political  Unrest  in  Russia 
Failure  of  the  Allies  to  Relieve  Russia 

VII.    Germany  Masters  the  Near  East    .... 

Decline  of  Allied  Prestige 

Bulgaria's  Entry  into  the  War  and  the  Conquest  of  Serbia 


PAGE 

I 
I 

7 
13 

21 
21 
27 
30 
37 

41 
41 
43 
50 
55 

58 
58 
62 

65 
69 
73 

■'80 
80 
S3 
89 

99 

99 
102 
107 
112 

121 
121 
124 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Failure  of  the  Allies  to  Relieve  Serbia:    The  Salonica 
Expedition 


vm. 


Completion  of  German  Mastery  of  the  Near  East 

Germany  Fails  to  Obtain  a  Decision  in  1916 
Teutonic  Optimism  at  the  Beginning  of  19 16  . 
The  Difficulty  at  Verdun :  "They  Shall  Not  Pass" 
The  Difficulty  in  the  Trentino  :  Italy's  Defense 
The  Difficulty  in  Ireland :  Suppression  of  Rebellion 
Difficulties  at  Sea:    The  Grand  Fleet  and  the  United 
States  Government 


IX. 


The  Allies  Fail  to  Obtain  a  Decision  in  19 16 
Attempted  Coordination  of  Allied  Plans  . 
Simultaneous  Allied  Drives:    The  Somme,  the  Isonzo 

and  the  Sereth 

The  Participation  and  Defeat  of  Rumania 
Stalemate  and  the  Teutonic  Peace  Drive 


X.    The  United  States  Intervenes  .... 
The  Stakes :  Isolation  or  a  League  of  Nations  ? 
The  Occasion :  Unrestricted  Submarine  Warfare 
The  Problem  :  Preparedness     .... 


1917) 


917) 


XI.    RussLA.  Revolts  and  Makes  "Peace" 

Destruction  of  Russian  Autocracy:    the  March 

Revolution 

Disintegration  of  Democracy:    Political   and  Military 

Experiments 

Dictatorship  of  the  Bolsheviki:    the  November  ( 

Revolution 

Defection  of  Russia :  the  Treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk 

XII.    The  Allies  Pave  the  Way  for  Ultimate  Victory 
Allied  Plans  and  Prospects  in  191 7  . 
The  Lesson  of  the  Hindenburg  Line 
Recovery  of  Allied  Prestige  in  the  Near  East  . 
Seeming  Obstacles  to  Allied  Victory 

XIII.    Germany  Makes  the  Supreme  Effort 
"Whom  the  Gods  Would  Destroy" 
The  Drive  against  the  British :  The  Battle  of  Picardy 
The  Drive  against  the  French :  The  Aisne  and  the  Oise 


129 
134 

143 

143 
J48 

156^ 
158 

162 

'168 
168 


171 
181 
191 

201 
201 
213 
219 

225 
225 
231 

246 

252 

261 
261 
272 
281 
287 

299 
299 
304 
3^3 


CONTENTS  a 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

The  Drive  against  the  Italians :  The  Piave      .        .        .317 
The  Final  German  Drive:    The  Second  Battle  of  the 

Maine  . 320 

XIV.    The  Allies  Triumph  and  Central  Europe  Revolts       .  326 

Allied  Victories  in  the  West 326 

Allied  Intervention  in  Russia 334 

Allied  Triumph  in  the  Near  East :  Surrender  of  Bulgaria 

and  Turkey 342 

The  Collapse  of  Austria-Hungary:    Resurgence  of  Op- 
pressed Nationalities 348 

The  End  of  Hostilities :  Flight  of  William  II   .        .        .356 

XV.    A  New  Era  Begins 365 

The  Settlement 365 

The  Losses 388 

Landmarks  of  the  New  Era 395 

Appendix  I :    The  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  .        .  413 

Appendix  II:    American  Reservations  to  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles        424 

Appendix    III :    Proposed    Agreement    Between    the    United 

States  and  France 428 

Select  Bibliography 431 

Index 437 


MAPS   IN   COLOR 

PRECEDING  PAGE 

1.  Europe,  1914 i 

2.  Germany,  1871-1914 7 

3.  Austria-Hungary,  1914      .        . 15 

4.  War  Area  of  Western  Europe 27 

5.  War  Area  of  Eastern  Europe  .        .        .        .        .        .        .41 

6.  The  Ottoman  Empire  and  the  Balkan  States         .        .        .81 

7.  Central  Europe,  January,  1916 143 

8.  Central  Europe,  March,  19 18 299 

9.  Europe,  1920 365 

10.   Colonial  Dominions  of  the  Great  Powers     .        .        .        .    401 


SKETCH   MAPS 

PAGE 

1.  Farthest  German  Advance  in  France 34 

2.  Allies'  Western  Front,  December,  1914        •        •        •        •      37 

3.  Japan's  Position  in  Relation  to  Korea,   Kiao-chao,  and 

China 63 

4.  German  "War  Zone"  OF  February  18,  191 5     ....  77 

5.  The  Dardanelles  Campaign,  191 5 86 

6.  Habsburg  Territories  Promised  to  Italy  by  the  Allies        .  93 

7.  The  Austro-Italian  War  Area 96 

8.  Eastern  Battle  Front,  191 5 103 

9.  The  Second  Battle  of  Ypres,  April-May,  191 5       .        .        .116 

10.  The  Allied  Offensive  in  September,  191 5       .        .        .        .119 

11.  Serbia,  1914 128 

12.  Asiatic  Turkey,  1914 138 

13.  Mesopotamia  and  Its  Strategic  Position         ....     141 

14.  Battle  Lines  around  Verdun,  1916 154 

15.  The  Russian  Drive  ON  THE  Styr,  1916 172 

16.  The  Russian  Drive  on  the  Sereth,  1916  .        .        .        .173 

xiii 


xiv  SKETCH  MAPS 

PAGE 

17.  The  Italian  Campaign  AGAINST  GoRiziA 175 

18.  Battle  of  the  Somme 179 

19.  Rumania  and  Transylvania,  1916 186 

20.  German  "War  Zone"  OF  February  I,  19 1 7      ....  214 

21.  The  Western  Front  near  Arras  and  on  the  Aisne        .        .273 

22.  The  Heights  of  the  Aisne 275 

23.  Battles  of  Messines  Ridge  and  Ypres 279 

24.  Battle  of  Cambrai     .        . 281 

25.  Scene  of  British  and  Arab  Advance  in  Palestine  .        .        .  286 

26.  The  Austro-German  Invasion  of  Italy 295 

27.  German  Gains,  1918 305 

28.  Second  Phase  of  the  Battle  of  Picardy 309 

29.  Scene  of  the  Last  Austrian  Offensive 318 

30.  Scene  of  the  Last  German  Offensive  :  The  Second  Battle 

OF  THE  Marne 323 

31.  Principal  Changes  in  Western  Front  from  August,  19 14, 

TO  November,  1918 327 

32.  The  St.  MmiEL  Drive  OF  the  Americans  .        .        .        .329 

33.  The  Franco- American  Offensive  on  the  Meuse  and  in  the 

Argonne 333 

34.  Allied  Intervention  in  Russia. 339 

35.  Macedonian  Front  at  Time  of  Bulgaria's  Surrender   .        .  345 

36.  Progress   of   British   and   Arab   Offensives   in   Turkey, 

October,  1918 347 

37.  Territory  Occupied  by  the  Allies  under  the  Armistice  of 

November  ii 358 

38.  New  Western  Boundaries  of  Germany 374 

39.  New  Eastern  Boundaries  of  Germany 375 


A   BRIEF   HISTORY 

OF   THE 

GREAT  WAR 


I 


A   BRIEF    HISTORY   OF 
THE  GREAT  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  GREAT  WAR  COMES 

THE   GENERAL   CAUSE:    INTERNATIONAL  ANARCHY 

Self-interest  was  the  dominant  note  of  the  years  imme- 
diately preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War.  In  economics 
and  in  pohtics,  among  individuals,  social  classes,  and  nations, 
flourished  a  self-interest  that  tended  more  and  more  to  degenerate 
into  mere  cynical  selfishness.  Pseudo-scientists  there  were  to 
justify  the  tendency  as  part  of  an  inevitable  ''struggle  for  exist- 
ence" and  to  extol  it  as  assuring  the  "survival  of  the  fittest." 

Economic  circumstances  had  provided  the  setting  for  the 
dogma  of  self-interest.  The  latest  age  in  world  history  had 
been  the  age  of  steam  and  electricity,  of  the  factory  and  the 
workshop,  of  the  locomotive,  the  steamship,  and  the  automobile. 
It  had  been  the  age  of  big  competitive  business.  Between  the 
capitalists  of  the  new  era  had  developed  the  keenest  rivalry  in 
exploiting  machinery,  mines,  raw  materials,  and  even  human 
beings,  with  a  view  to  securing  the  largest  share  of  the  world's 
riches  and  the  world's  prestige.  It  was  a  race  of  the  strong,  and 
"the  devil  take  the  hindmost." 

Competition  in  big  business  gave  manners  and  tone  to  the 
whole  age.  It  inspired  a  multitude  of  mankind  to  emulate  the 
"captains  of  industry."  It  furnished  the  starting-point  and 
the  main  impulse  for  the  development  of  the  doctrines  of  Social- 
ists and  of  Anarchists  and  of  all  those  who  laid  stress  upon 
"class  consciousness "  and  " class  struggle."  It  even  served  to  set 
farmers  against  manufacturers  and  to  pit  "producers"  against 
"consumers."  To  secure  power  and  thereby  to  obtain  wealth, 
or  to  secure  wealth  and  thereby  to  obtain  power,  became  the 
more  or  less  conscious  end  and  aim  of  individuals  and  of  whole 
classes. 


2  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Trade  —  the  veritable  red  blood  of  modern  industrial  life 
—  has  not  been,  and  from  its  nature  cannot  be,  narrowly  national. 
Not  only  must  there  be  commerce  between  one  highly  civiHzed 
nation  and  another,  but  there  must  Hkewise  be  trade  between 
an  industrialized  nation  and  more  backward  peoples  in  tropical 
or  semi-tropical  regions.  The  modern  business  man  has  need 
of  raw  materials  from  the  tropics ;  he  has  manufactured  goods 
to  sell  in  return;  most  important  of  all,  he  frequently  finds 
that  investments  in  backward  countries  are  especially  lucrative 
in  themselves  and  stimulative  of  greater  and  more  advantageous 
trade.  So  self-interest  has  been  pursued  abroad  as  well  as  at 
home,  and  usually  with  the  most  calamitously  anarchical  results. 
Whatever  restrictions  might  be  imposed  by  a  strong  national 
state  on  the  selfish  activities  of  its  citizens  at  home  were  either 
non-existent  or  ineffective  in  restraining  them  wherever  govern- 
ments were  unstable  or  weak.  In  backward  countries  the 
foreign  exploiter  often  behaved  as  though  "getting  rich  quick'' 
was  the  supreme  obligation  imposed  upon  him  by  the  civilization 
whose  representative  and  exponent  he  was.  The  natives  suffered 
from  the  unregulated  dealings  of  the  foreigners.  And  the 
foreigners,  drawn  perhaps  from  several  different  nations,  carried 
their  mutual  economic  rivalries  into  the  sphere  of  international 
competition  and  thereby  created  "danger  zones"  or  "arenas  of 
friction." 

After  1870  this  aspect  of  capitalistic  imperialism  was  increas- 
ingly in  evidence.  Any  one  who  would  follow  an  outline  story 
of  the  exploitation  of  backward  regions  by  business  men  of  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Russia,  Japan,  and  the  United 
States  would  perceive  the  process  and  would  appreciate  its 
attendant  dangers.  Any  one  who  is  at  all  familiar  with  the 
"arenas  of  friction"  in  Egypt,  in  China,  in  Siam,  in  the  Sudan, 
in  Morocco,  in  Persia,  in  the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  in  the  Bal- 
kans would  be  in  possession  of  a  valuable  clew  to  a  significant 
cause  of  every  war  of  the  twentieth  century,  particularly  to 
the  chief  cause  of  the  Great  War. 

What  had  complicated  the  situation  was  the  fact  that  trade, 
though  in  essence  international,  had  been  conducted  in  practice 
on  a  national  basis,  and  that  foreign  investors  had  been  per- 
petually appeahng  for  support  not  to  an  international  conscience 
and  an  international  poHce  but  to  the  patriotism  and  armed 
forces  of  their  respective  national  states.  In  other  words, 
anarchy  had  continued  to  characterize  international  politics  as 
well  as  domestic  economics. 


THE   GREAT  WAR  COMES  3 

There  was  no  international  organization.  There  was  no 
general  authority  for  the  determination  of  disputes  and  for  the 
regulation  of  world  interests.  There  were  at  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century  some  fifty  states,  in  theory  absolutely  inde- 
pendent, sovereign,  and  equal.  In  fact,  the  fifty  were  very 
unequal  and  even  the  strongest  among  them  was  not  strong 
enough  to  maintain  its  independence  should  the  others  unite 
against  it.  Yet  each  proceeded  to  act  on  the  assumption  in 
most  cases  that  it  was  self-sufficient  and  that  its  own  self-interest 
was  its  supreme  guide. 

Running  through  the  whole  anarchic  state-system,  as  woof 
through  warp,  was  the  doctrine  of  nationality.  It  is  a  common- 
place to  us  that  a  compact  people  speaking  the  same  language 
and  sharing  the  same  historical  traditions  and  social  customs 
should  be  politically  united  as  an  independent  nation.  To  the 
nineteenth  century,  however,  nationalism  was  a  revolutionary 
force.  At  its  dawn  there  was  no  free  German  nation,  no  free 
Italian  nation.  But  the  all-conquering  armies  of  the  French 
Revolutionaries  brought  to  the  disjointed  and  dispirited  peoples 
of  Europe  a  new  gospel  of  Fraternity,  that  men  of  the  same 
nation  should  be  brothers-in-arms  to  defend  their  liberties 
against  the  tyrant  and  their  homes  against  the  foreign  foe. 
Poetry  glorified  the  idea  of  national  patriotism,  religion  sanc- 
tioned it,  and  political  theory  invested  it  with  all  the  finahty  of 
a  scientific  dogma.  Within  a  century,  the  spirit  of  nationality 
produced  an  independent  Greece,  a  Serbia,  a  Rumania,  a  Bul- 
garia, a  Belgium,  a  Norway,  an  Italy,  a  Germany.  Each  nation — 
old  and  young  —  was  proud  of  its  national  language,  its  national 
customs,  its  frequently  fictitious  but  always  glorious  national 
history,  and  above  all,  of  its  national  political  unification  and 
freedom. 

Everywhere  the  doctrine  of  nationality  has  brought  forth 
fruits  in  abundance.  It  has  awakened  all  peoples  to  national 
self -consciousness.  It  has  inspired  noble  and  glorious  deeds. 
It  has  stimulated  art  and  literature.  It  has  promoted  popular 
education  and  political  democracy.  It  should  have  led,  not 
backwards  to  eighteenth-century  indifferent  cosmopolitanism, 
but  forwards  to  twentieth-century  inter-nationalism,  to  a  con- 
federation of  all  the  free  nations  of  the  world  for  mutual  co- 
operation and  support.  Hither,  on  the  eve  of  the  Great  War, 
it  had  not  led.     And  this  was  the  tragedy  of  nationalism. 

Nationalism  was  utilized  too  often  to  point  citizens  to  what 
was  peculiar  to  their  own  nation  rather  than  to  what  was  common 


4  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

to  all  mankind.  It  served  to  emphasize  the  exclusiveness  of  each 
state  and  to  promote  selfishness  in  a  new  and  national  form.  It 
led  nations  which  had  not  yet  achieved  complete  unity  and  inde- 
pendence, like  the  Irish,  the  Poles,  the  Czechs,  the  Serbs,  and  the 
Rumans,  to  combat  more  fortunate  nations ;  and  among  the  per- 
fected nations  it  aroused  such  selfish  intolerance  as  to  render  them 
tyrannical  over  dissident  minorities  and  to  cause  them  to  enter- 
tain the  notion  that  they  were  manifestly  destined  to  impose  their 
own  brand  of  civilization  or  Kultur  upon,  if  not  arbitrarily  to 
rule  over,  ''inferior"  races. 

Nationalism,  moreover,  prompted  whole  peoples  to  give  patri- 
otic support  to  the  pretensions  of  their  relatively  few  fellow-citi- 
zens who  in  less  favored  lands  were  seeking  profits  at  the  expense 
of  natives  and  perhaps  of  neighbors.  The  foreign  tradesman  or 
investor  was  under  no  obligation  to  an  impartial  international 
tribunal :  he  had  only  to  present  his  international  grievances  to 
the  uncritical  and  sympathetic  ears  of  his  distant  fellow-nationals, 
with  the  usual  result  that  his  cause  was  championed  at  home  and 
that  redress  for  his  real  or  fancied  wrongs  was  forthcoming  from  a 
single  one  of  the  fifty  sovereign  states.  And  when  tradesmen  or 
investors  of  other  nationalities  appealed  from  the  same  distant 
regions  to  their  several  states,  what  had  been  an  arena  of  economic 
friction  between  competing  capitalists  in  backward  lands  speedily 
became  an  arena  of  poHtical  friction  between  civilized  sovereign 
states. 

In  this  fashion  the  spirit  of  nationalism  operated  to  reenforce 
the  anarchy  both  of  international  politics  and  of  international 
economics.  Modern  imperialism,  curiously  enough,  became  an 
arc  on  the  circle  of  exclusive  nationaHsm.  It  was  a  vicious  circle, 
and  the  only  way  to  break  it  seemed  to  involve  the  method  most 
terribly  anarchic  —  employment  of  brute  force  —  war  !  It  had 
been  in  view  of  this  grim  eventuahty  that  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury every  sovereign  state  had  been  arming  itself  and  utilizing 
every  landmark  in  the  progress  of  civilization  in  order  to  forge 
instruments  of  destruction.  Imperialism  —  Nationalism  —  Mili- 
tarism —  these  three  stalked  forth  hand  in  hand. 

Armed  force  was  comparatively  Httle  used ;  its  mere  existence 
and  the  mere  threat  of  its  use  ordinarily  sufficed.  Indirectly,  if 
not  directly,  however,  force  and  power  were  final  arbitrament  be- 
tween each  two  of  the  fifty  sovereign  states.  And  it  was  no  eu- 
phemism that  every  such  state  was  styled  a  "Power,"  and  that 
certain  states  on  account  of  the  thickness  and  weight  of  their  ar- 
mor and  the  success  that  customarily  attended  their  threats  were 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  5 

popularly  dubbed  *' Great  Powers."  In  a  world  like  this  there 
was  little  chance  for  international  order  and  security.  It  was  in- 
ternational anarchy  —  and  that  was  all. 

For  many  generations  before  the  Great  War  the  delicate  rela- 
tions between  the  jealously  sovereign  states  —  aptly  called  the 
''balance  of  power"  —  had  been  manipulated  by  a  professional 
class  of  "diplomatists"  with  the  aid  of  military  and  naval  attaches 
and  of  spies  and  secret  service.  The  customs  and  methods  of 
diplomacy  had  been  determined  in  large  part  at  a  time  when  they 
conformed  quite  nicely  to  the  purposes  and  ideals  of  the  divine- 
right  dynasts  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  but 
in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries,  when  democracy  was 
constantly  preached  and  increasingly  practiced,  they  might  have 
seemed  old-fashioned  and  anachronistic.  To  be  sure,  there  were 
some  modifications  both  in  the  objects  and  in  the  methods  of  di- 
plomacy :  as  a  result  of  the  industrial  changes  in  our  own  day, 
economic  questions  provided  a  larger  and  more  attractive  field  for 
tortuous  diplomatic  negotiation  than  mere  dynastic  problems; 
and  by  the  use  of  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  and  the  cable  the 
individual  diplomatist  was  kept  in  closer  touch  than  formerly 
with  his  home  government.  Still,  however,  the  diplomatists  were 
mainly  persons  of  a  class,  elderly,  suave,  insinuating,  moving 
mysteriously  their  wonders  to  perform.  Democrats  who  in  many 
countries  had  laid  violent  hands  upon  innumerable  institutions 
of  despotism  and  had  brought  most  matters  of  public  concern  to 
the  knowledge  of  a  universal  electorate,  hesitated  to  assail  this 
last  rehc  of  divine-right  monarchy  or  to  trust  the  guidance  of  in- 
ternational relations  to  an  enfranchised  democracy  which  might 
by  the  slightest  slip  upset  the  balance  of  power  and  plunge  an 
anarchic  world  into  an  abyss. 

So  the  diplomatists  in  our  own  day  continued  to  manage  affairs 
after  their  old  models.  They  got  what  they  could  for  their  fellow- 
nationals  by  cajolery  or  by  threats.  If  they  thought  they  could 
do  more  for  their  fellow-nationals  by  making  special  "deals"  with 
diplomatists  of  other  Powers,  they  did  so,  and  presto!  a  "con- 
vention," an  "entente,"  or  a  "treaty  of  alliance"  defensive  or 
offensive  or  both.  The  game  had  become  quite  involved  and  ab- 
sorbing by  191 4,  and  quite  hazardous.  Germany  thought  she 
needed  aid  to  enable  her  to  retain  the  loot  which  she  had  taken 
from  France ;  Austria-Hungary  thought  she  needed  assistance 
in  the  development  of  her  Balkan  policy ;  Italy  thought  she  must 
have  help  in  safeguarding  Rome  and  in  defending  herself  from 
possible  French  or  Austrian  aggression.     So  German  and  Aus- 


6  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF    THE    GREAT   WAR 

trian  diplomatists  formed  a  "defensive  alliance"  in  1879,  and 
Italy,  joining  them  in  1882,  transformed  it  into  the  "Triple  Alli- 
ance." This  was  the  beginning  of  the  ahgnment  of  the  Great 
Powers  in  our  own  generation.  Diplomatists  of  repubHcan 
France  and  autocratic  Russia  cemented  the  secret  defensive 
"Dual  Alliance"  in  1892.  Diplomatists  of  democratic  Great 
Britain  and  oligarchical  Japan  formed  a  Far  Eastern  "alUance" 
in  1902.  Diplomatists  of  Great  Britain  and  France  effected  a 
rapprochement  and  an  "entente"  in  1904.  To  this  "entente" 
the  diplomatists  of  Russia  were  admitted  in  1907.  And  between 
Triple  Alliance  and  Triple  Entente  the  balance  of  power  was  so 
neatly  adjusted  that  from  1907  to  19 14  one  trivial  occurrence 
after  another  almost  upset  it. 

Of  course,  the  smaller  states  —  the  "lesser  powers"  —  were 
mainly  at  the  mercy  of  the  "Great  Powers"  and  their  delicate 
balance.  On  the  very  eve  of  the  Great  War  diplomatists  of  Ger- 
many and  Great  Britain  were  secretly  negotiating  the  virtual 
partition  of  the  colonial  empire  of  Portugal.  On  the  other  hand, 
changes  among  the  lesser  powers  might  produce  prodigious  dan- 
ger to  the  balance  of  the  Great  Powers.  The  defeat  of  Turkey  by 
four  Httle  Balkan  states  in  1912-1913  appeared  on  the  surface  to 
be  slightly  more  advantageous  to  Russia  than  to  Austria-Hungary, 
with  the  result  that  Germany  and  her  Habsburg  ally  were  thrown 
into  a  paroxysm  of  fear,  and  one  Power  after  another  consecrated 
the  year  1913  to  unprecedented  armed  preparedness.  By  1914 
it  actually  required  nothing  less  trivial  in  itself  than  the  assassi- 
nation of  an  archduke  to  exhaust  the  imagination  and  endeavor  of 
the  professional  balancers  between  the  Powers  and  to  send  the 
diplomatists  scurrying  homewards,  leaving  the  common  people 
of  the  several  nations  to  confront  one  another  in  the  most  formi- 
dable and  portentous  battle-array  that  the  world  in  all  its  long 
recorded  history  had  ever  beheld. 

Those  last  years  before  the  storm  and  the  hurricane  were  indeed 
a  strange,  nightmarish  time.  Man  had  gained  a  large  measure 
of  control  over  his  physical  environment  and  a  very  small  amount 
of  knowledge  about  his  true  political,  social,  and  economic  needs. 
In  most  countries  democracy  and  nationalism  were  growing  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  In  other  countries  there  was  more  or  less 
mute  protest  against  interference  with  national  right  and  demo- 
cratic development.  Everywhere  the  Industrial  Revolution  was 
providing  an  economic  foundation  for  international  federation. 
Yet  the  spirit  of  the  age  seemed  incapable  of  expression  save  in 
institutions  which  had  been  distantly  inherited  and  which  in  most 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  7 

instances  had  outlived  their  usefulness.  Recurring  crises  between 
sovereign  states  and  increasing  social  unrest  in  every  country- 
were  alike  signs  of  the  passing  of  a  worn-.out  age  and  of  the  coming 
of  a  new  age  which  should  more  perfectly  square  institutions  with 
vital  popular  needs  and  longings.  Those  three  shibboleths  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  —  Nationahsm,  Imperiahsm,  Militarism,  — 
as  interpreted  in  the  traditional  language  of  the  exclusive  state- 
system,  were  producing  the  utmost  confusion.  Together  they 
embodied  the  spirit  of  Anarchy,  a  spirit  that  could  not  perma- 
nently endure  on  a  shrinking  globe  or  among  social  animals.  To- 
gether they  were  operating  to  produce  a  cataclysm  which  should 
stand  forth  as  one  of  those  great  crises  in  Man's  historic  evolution, 
such  as  the  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Reformation,  and 
the  French  Revolution.  And  the  cataclysm  came  in  the  Great 
War.  Its  underlying  cause  was  international  anarchy.  Its 
stakes  were  the  perpetuation  or  the  destruction  of  that  anarchy. 

THE  IMMEDIATE   CAUSE:    GERMANY 

The  vices  of  modern  political  and  economic  life  might  be  exem- 
plified in  greater  or  less  degree  by  reference  to  the  history  of  any 
Power  or  any  country.  Obviously  they  were  more  developed  in 
the  *'  Great  Powers"  than  in  the  "Lesser  Powers"  ;  and  of  all  the 
*' Great  Powers"  the  most  perfect  exemplar  of  nationalism,  im- 
perialism, and  militarism,  and  therefore  the  most  viciously  an- 
archic in  international  relations,  was  Germany.  It  was  Germany 
which  precipitated  the  Great  War. 

Militarism  is  not  merely  the  possession  of  large  armed  forces ; 
it  involves  also  the  exaltation  of  such  armed  forces  to  the  chief 
place  in  the  state,  the  subordination  to  them  of  the  civil  authori- 
ties, the  reliance  upon  them  in  every  dispute.  In  explaining  why 
a  given  nation  may  be  pecuHarly  predisposed  to  militarism,  at 
least  four  factors  should  be  taken  into  account :  (i)  geographical 
situation,  (2)  historical  traditions,  (3)  political  organization, 
and  (4)  social  structure.  In  every  country  one  or  another  of 
these  factors  has  worked  toward  militarism,  sometimes  two  or 
three.  In  Germany  all  four  have  been  fully  operative  in  that 
direction. 

For  centuries  German  lands  had  been  battlefields  for  aggressive 
neighbors.  Situated  in  the  center  of  Europe,  with  weak  natural 
frontiers,  these  lands  had  been  the  prey  of  Spaniards,  Swedes, 
Frenchmen,  Poles,  and  Russians.  From  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  down  to  the  domi- 


8  A   BRIEF   HISTORY    OF    THE    GREAT   WAR 

nation  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  in  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  most  of  the  German  states  were  at  the  mercy  of  foreigners. 
What  international  prestige  Germans  retained  thnroughout  that 
dreary  period  was  credited  to  the  military  prowess  of  Austria  and 
more  particularly  to  the  waxing  strength  of  Prussia.  Prussia  had 
no  easily  defensible  boundaries,  and  her  rise  to  eminence  was  due 
to  the  soldierly  qualities  of  her  Hohenzollern  sovereigns  —  the 
Great  Elector,  King  Frederick  William  I,  and  Frederick  the  Great. 
When,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  German  Empire  was  created, 
it  was  the  work  of  the  large,  well-organized,  well-equipped  army 
of  Prussia,  and  it  was  achieved  only  at  the  price  of  French  mihtary 
defeat  and  of  diplomatic  concessions  to  Russia.  After  the  crea- 
tion of  the  German  Empire  in  187 1  most  of  its  citizens  continued 
to  believe  that  its  geographical  position  between  populous  Russia 
and  well-armed  France  required  the  guarantee  of  militarism  for 
its  future  maintenance. 

Despite  the  drawback  of  their  geographical  situation  the  Ger- 
mans had  finally  achieved  national  unification,  and  among  a 
people  zealously  worshiping  the  spirit  of  nationalism  the  process 
by  which  they  had  secured  national  union  became  their  most  hal- 
lowed historical  tradition.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  first  serious 
attempt  to  achieve  the  political  unification  of  the  Germanics  was 
made  by  the  democratic  Frankfort  Assembly  in  the  stormy  days 
of  1 848-1 849 ;  that  it  represented  a  combination  of  nationaUsm 
and  liberaHsm,  of  the  German  nation  with  the  German  democracy. 
But  this  first  attempt  failed.  The  second  attempt,  Bismarck's 
attempt  ^'by  iron  and  blood,"  was  crowned  with  success.  Bis- 
marck's three  wars  of  1864,  1866,  and  1870-187 1,  solidly  estab- 
lished the  united  German  Empire.  ''Nothing  succeeds  like  suc- 
cess," and  the  three  wars  simultaneously  sanctified  the  union  of 
nationaHsm  and  militarism,  of  the  German  nation  with  the  Prus- 
sian army.  Moreover,  as  Prussia  henceforth  embraced  two- 
thirds  the  area  and  three-fifths  the  population  of  the  Empire  and 
as  the  Hohenzollern  king  of  Prussia  was  henceforth  the  German 
Emperor,  the  whole  Empire  was  inevitably  Prussianized,  and 
Prussian  history  and  Prussian  tradition  supphed  the  patriotic 
impulse  to  all  Germans.  In  this  way  the  tradition  of  miHtarism 
—  the  most  important  one  that  Prussia  had  —  gradually  sup- 
planted the  more  cosmopolitan  and  cultural  traditions  which  had 
once  flourished  in  southern  and  central  Germany,  and  in  the  pan- 
theon of  national  heroes  all  German  patriots  inscribed  tablets  to 
the  long  line  of  warlike  Hohenzollern  monarchs,  to  the  valorous 
Queen  Louise,  to  Scharnhorst,  Gneisenau,  Moltke,  and  Roon,  to 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  9 

the  unscrupulous  and  forceful  Bismarck  —  a  veritable  galaxy  of 
Thors  and  Wodens. 

With  this  tradition  the  poHtical  organization  of  the  German 
Empire  was  in  perfect  harmony.  Chief  authority  in  the  central 
government  was  confided  to  the  Bundesrat,  a  close  corporation 
of  diplomatists  representing  the  hereditary  princes  of  the  German 
states,  meeting  in  secret  session,  and  largely  controlled  by  the 
chancellor,  an  official  appointed  by,  and  responsible  to,  the  king 
of  Prussia.  Only  secondary  authority  was  intrusted  to  the 
popularly  elected  Reichstag.  Prussia,  as  the  dominant  state  in 
the  confederation,  retained  her  oligarchical  and  plutocratic  form 
of  government,  with  her  parliament  elected  by  the  absurd  and 
thoroughly  undemocratic  three-class  system  of  voting.  The 
Emperor,  in  training  and  profession  a  soldier  rather  than  a  civilian, 
was  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  his  tenure 
was  for  life.  Under  the  constitution  of  Prussia,  whose  contingent 
comprised  the  greater  part  of  the  German  army,  the  Emperor- 
King  might  apply  indefinitely  from  year  to  year  to  the  support  of 
the  army  the  amount  last  voted  by  the  parliament,  instead  of 
being  obliged  to  depend  upon  annual  financial  grants.  The  Ger- 
man soldier  took  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Kaiser  and  not  to 
the  Constitution.  In  Germany,  finally,  the  military  authorities 
were  accountable  for  their  acts  only  to  military  tribunals.  Such 
an  affair  as  that  at  Saverne  in  Alsace  in  1913-1914  ^  was  a  clear 
illustration  of  the  disregard  of  the  mihtary  for  civilian  rights  and 
of  the  inability  of  civilians  under  German  political  institutions 
to  obtain  redress  for  their  just  grievances  against  the  military. 

Most  potent  of  all  factors  in  predisposing  Germany  to  milita- 
rism was  the  structure  of  her  society.  In  Germany  more  nearly 
than  in  any  other  highly  industriaHzed  country,  agriculture 
has  held  its  own  and  the  agricultural  classes  have  suffered  less  in 
purse  and  in  prestige  through  competition  with  manufacturers 
and  tradesmen.  Not  only  have  the  German  farmers  preserved 
their  economic  independence,  but  a  conspicuous  group  of  them 
have  continued  to  our  own  day  to  enjoy  the  greatest  social  pres- 
tige and  to  exert  the  greatest  influence  in  politics.     These  are  the 

^  Saverne,  or  Zabem  as  the  Germans  called  it,  was  the  scene  throughout  1913- 
1914  of  the  harshest  and  most  offensive  conduct  of  the  German  garrison  toward  the 
native  civilian  population,  culminating  in  the  slashing  of  a  lame  cobbler  by  a 
Junker  lieutenant.  In  vain  did  the  local  authorities  and  even  the  Reichstag  en- 
deavor to  establish  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  courts  in  handling  the  situation; 
the  army  proved  itself  superior  to  the  law,  and  the  responsible  officers  received  no 
part  of  the  punishment  which  they  richly  deserved.  For  a  detailed  account  of  the 
Saverne  Affair,  see  C.  D.  Hazen,  Alsace-Lorraine  under  German  Rule  (1917),  ch. 


lO  A   BRIEF    HISTORY   OF    THE    GREAT   WAR 

landholding  nobles  and  the  country  gentlemen  of  Prussia  —  the 
squirearchy,  or  Junkerthum.  From  time  immemorial  they  had 
divided  their  attention  between  oversight  of  their  extensive  es- 
tates and  the  service  of  their  Hohenzollern  overlord  in  his  civil 
bureaucracy  or  in  his  army.  Unlike  their  fellows  in  France  no 
mighty  revolution  had  wrested  their  lands  from  them  and  no 
republican  regime  had  deprived  them  of  their  offices  and  privi- 
leges. In  our  own  generation  the  efficient  civil  service  in  Prussia 
and  throughout  Germany  was  still  largely  recruited  from  them ; 
most  commissioned  officers  in  the  large  Prussian  army  were  still 
appointed  from  their  number ;  and  they  were  still  utilizing  their 
positions  of  trust  and  power  in  order  to  serve  their  own  class- 
interests.  The  Junkers  could  afford  to  be  most  intensely  loyal 
and  patriotic.  They  extolled  militarism,  and  the  extolling  of  mili- 
tarism exalted  them. 

Second  only  to  the  Junkers  in  significance  and  influence  were 
the  capitalists,  the  product  of  that  amazing  industrial  and  com- 
mercial evolution  through  which  Germany  had  passed  in  the  last 
forty  years.  Not  a  country  in  the  world  had  witnessed  in  so 
brief  a  time  an  economic  transformation  of  such  prodigious  di- 
mensions as  the  German  Empire  had  experienced.  Cities  had 
grown  rapidly;  factories  had  been  reared  overnight;  mine- 
shafts  had  been  quickly  sunk  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth ;  an 
ever  expanding  fleet  of  merchant  vessels  had  put  to  sea,  carrying 
German  manufactures  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  globe ;  tra- 
ders, suddenly  gorged  with  gold,  had  speedily  turned  investors, 
and,  imitating  the  example  of  older  foreign  industrialists,  had 
rushed  to  exploit  Africa  and  South  Sea  Islands  and  China  and 
South  America  and  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

The  capitaHsts,  and  the  middle  classes  generally,  might  have 
been  expected  to  come  into  sharp  collision  with  the  Junkers, 
so  divergent  were  the  natural  interests  of  the  two  classes.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  did  colHde  repeatedly  in  shaping  domestic 
policies,  and  much  of  the  internal  history  of  the  German  Empire 
from  1870  to  1 9 14  was  the  story  of  the  conflicts  and  compromises 
between  theni.  One  sacred  German  institution,  however,  kept 
the  class-struggle  within  patriotic  bounds,  and  that  institution 
was  militarism.  German  traders  and  investors,  arriving  late 
in  foreign  and  backward  lands,  usually  found  the  keenest  economic 
competition  already  proceeding  between  business-men  of  Great 
Britain,  France,  or  some  other  industrialized  Power;  and  were 
they  to  have  an  equal  or  a  better  chance  in  the  international 
scramble  for  economic  exploitation  they  would  have  to  invoke 


GERMANY 

1871-1914 


Longitude  East 


ENaRAVEO  BY  BORMAY  <l  CO.4  N.Yk' 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  ii 

the  armed  forces  of  Germany,  their  own  ''Great  Power."  At 
home  a  huge  mihtary  machine  was  ready  to  aim  and  fire.  Ad- 
mitting that  the  German  army  of  the  1870's  was  reUed  upon 
chiefly  for  defense  against  potential  attacks  of  neighboring  France 
and  Russia,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  twenty  and  thirty  years  later 
it  had  become  the  standing  threat  by  means  of  which  German 
citizens  were  prosecuting  their  unregulated  economic  activities 
abroad  and  by  means  of  which  the  whole  German  Empire  was 
championing  unrestrained  anarchy  in  international  relations. 
To  the  existing  army,  the  capitalistic  interests  of  Germany  added 
the  rapidly  expanding  navy  with  the  threats  therein  implied. 
The  Junkers  officered  all  the  armed  forces  and  naturally  extolled 
militarism.  Militarism  proved  serviceable  to  the  capitaHsts,  and 
they  in  turn  extolled  militarism.  By  the  iron  ring  of  miHtarism 
were  agricultural  and  industrial  interests  wedded.  The  Junkers 
were  now  serving  the  capitalists,  and  the  capitalists  were  honor- 
ing the  Junkers.  The  promise  "to  obey"  was  left  out  of  the 
covenant,  for  both  contracting  parties  had  freely  given  that  pledge 
to  the  high  priest  who  solemnized  the  nuptials,  to  the  Kaiser  him- 
self. 

Even  in  Germany  protests  were  raised  from  time  to  time  against 
the  extent  of  militarism  and  against  some  of  the  uses  to  which  it 
was  put.  The  numerically  important  party  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats were  particularly  vocal  in  their  denunciations.  The  Center, 
or  Catholic,  party  had  not  always  taken  kindly  to  militarism. 
There  were  various  groups  of  radicals  who  had  inveighed  against 
it.  It  was  naturally  viewed  with  dislike  by  dissident  nationalities 
within  the  German  Empire,  such  as  the  Poles,  the  Danes,  and  the 
Alsatians.  Yet  over  these  parties  and  factions  the  Junker  and 
capitalistic  patriots  always  managed  to  keep  the  upper  hand,  and 
in  course  of  time  the  opposition  dwindled  rather  than  increased. 
The  dissident  nationahsts  and  the  pacifist  radicals  were  relatively 
few  and  quite  impotent.  The  Catholics  grew  more  resigned  to 
militarism  when  they  discovered  that  it  was  being  used  to  bolster 
up  Austria-Hungary,  Germany's  Catholic  ally.  And  the  Social 
Democrats  were  never  given  to  violence ;  as  time  went  on,  they 
were  too  intent  upon  rolling  up  electoral  pluralities  to  take  a  posi- 
tive stand  that  might  shock  the  patriotic  instincts  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen.  The  militarists  in  Germany  were  having  their  own 
way. 

Forcefully  the  mihtarists  cleared  the  way  for  German  capitalists 
abroad.  The  German  fist  was  shaken  in  the  face  of  Japan  in  1895 
and  in  the  face  of  China  in  1897  ^^^  again  in  19CX).     In  1896  there 


12  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

were  threats  against  Great  Britain  in  connection  with  affairs  in 
South  Africa.  In  1898  there  were  veiled  threats  against  the 
United  States  in  connection  with  affairs  in  the  PhiUppines,  and 
in  1903  America  was  concerned  with  German  threats  against 
Venezuela.  In  1896  the  Kaiser  himself,  on  a  spectacular  visit  to 
Turkey,  declared  at  Damascus  that "  at  all  times  he  was  the  friend 
and  protector  of  the  three  hundred  million  Mussulmans  who  hon- 
ored Sultan  Abdul  Hamid  as  Caliph"  —  an  assertion  not  only 
of  German  political  and  economic  interests  in  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire but  also  of  German  opposition  to  British  rule  in  India  and 
in  Egypt  and  to  French  rule  in  northern  Africa.  In  1904  the 
Kaiser  encouraged  Russia  to  fight  Japan,  and  in  the  following 
year  he  utilized  Russian  miHtary  defeats  in  order  to  compel 
France,  Russia's  ally,  to  alter  her  Moroccan  policy.  In  1908- 
1909  he  stood  *'in  shining  armor"  beside  his  own  ally,  Austria- 
Hungary,  enabling  her  coolly  and  calmly  to  tear  up  an  interna- 
tional treaty  and  to  appropriate  the  Serb-Turkish  provinces  of 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  despite  the  entreaties  of  the  states  of 
Serbia  and  Montenegro  and  despite  the  lively  sympathy  of  the 
Russians  with  their  South  Slav  (Jugoslav)  brethren.  In  191 1 
Germany  unsheathed  the  sword  at  Agadir,  and  put  it  up  again 
only  on  condition  of  receiving  a  hundred  thousand  square  miles 
of  French  colonial  dominion  in  equatorial  Africa.  In  191 2  and 
1913,  during  the  Balkan  Wars,  Germany  proved  herself  a  bril- 
liant second  to  Austria-Hungary  in  preventing  Serbian  egress  to 
the  Adriatic,  in  driving  the  Montenegrins  out  of  the  town  of 
Scutari  which  they  had  captured  from  the  Turks,  in  erecting  the 
petty  principahty  of  Albania,  and  otherwise  in  strengthening  the 
Austro- German  strangle-hold  on  Turkey  and  the  Balkans.  From 
1895  to  1914  Germany  pursued  without  cessation  the  policy  of 
employing  force  and  threats  and  bluff  in  order  to  win  economic 
advantages  and  political  prestige.  *'It  is  only  by  relying  on  our 
good  German  sword,"  wrote  Crown  Prince  Frederick  William  in 
1 913,  ''that we  can  hope  to  conquer  that  place  in  the  sun  which 
rightly  belongs  to  us,  and  which  no  one  will  yield  to  us  volun- 
tarily. .  .  .  Till  the  world  comes  to  an  end,  the  ultimate  deci- 
sion must  rest  with  the  sword." 

Militarism  has  been  most  frequently  excused  on  the  ground 
that  it  guarantees  order  and  security.  Paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  German  militarism  from  1895  to  1914  produced  no  such 
happy  results.  Not  only  was  there  a  renewed  epidemic  of  wars 
and  rumors  of  war  between  states  but  there  was  the  most  as- 
tounding lack  of  a  sense  of  security  in  Germany.     The  more 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  13 

Germany  affronted  Russia,  France,  and  Great  Britain,  the  higher 
rolled  the  wave  of  fear,  even  of  panic,  within  Germany.  Patri- 
otic mihtaristic  societies  came  into  being  by  the  score,  societies 
like  the  Navy  League,  the  Pan-German  League,  the  Security 
League,  performing  the  twofold  function  of  preparing  the  mind 
for  additional  deeds  of  aggression  and  of  instilHng  in  the  same 
popular  mind  the  basest  sort  of  fright  and  terror.  Under  the 
auspices  of  these  leagues  what  might  be  termed  a  ''psychology  of 
suggestion"  was  communicated  gradually  and  skillfully  to  the 
German  masses.  Russia  was  ''menacing,"  and  as  formerly  there 
had  been  a  "Yellow  Peril"  so  now  there  was  a  "Slavic  Peril." 
France  was  thirsting  for  "revenge,"  was  "vengeful,"  but  also  the 
French  were  "decadent."  The  English  were  insanely  "jealous" 
and  Great  Britain  was  "the  vampire  of  the  Continent."  More- 
over, when  "  menacing  "  Russia  and  "vengeful"  France  and  "jeal- 
ous" Britain  tended  to  draw  together,  the  German  professors  of 
suggestive  psychology  began  to  exploit  the  word  "encirclement" 
and  to  expatiate  upon  the  ring  of  dangerous,  greedy  neighbors  by 
which  the  Fatherland  and  child  Austria  were  surrounded.  As 
the  ring  best  known  to  the  German  mind  was  of  iron,  this  foreign 
"encirclement"  was  naturally  termed  the  "iron  ring." 

One  step  further  went  the  terrifying  phrase-makers  of  Ger- 
many. Now  that  they  had  made  up  their  own  minds  and  had 
gone  far  toward  fashioning  the  conviction  of  the  bulk  of  their 
fellow-countrymen  that  sooner  or  later  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary  would  be  crushed  to  death  by  the  inevitable  pressure 
of  the  encircling  "iron  ring,"  they  began  to  suggest  and  then  to 
preach  the  necessity  of  a  speedy  open  attack  before  the  iron  ring 
should  become  so  strong  as  to  be  irresistible.  Such  an  attack  upon 
nominally  peaceful  neighbors  could  not  be  construed  as  "defensive 
war."  Yet  from  the  German  standpoint  it  would  not  be  "ofifen- 
sive  war."  The  psychologists  escaped  from  the  dilemma  by  urging 
the  plausible  slogan  of  "preventive  war."  And  to  the  problem 
of  finding  the  most  favorable  opportunity  for  inaugurating  the 
"preventive  war,"  German mihtarists and  German  patriots  turned 
their  attention.  In  1914  Germany  was  ready,  and  her  governing 
class  of  Junkers  and  capitalists  were  willing,  to  precipitate  war. 

THE  OCCASION:   THE  ASSASSINATION  OF  AN  ARCHDUKE 

On  June  28,  19 14,  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand,  nephew 
of  the  aged  Emperor- King  Francis  Joseph  and  heir  to  the  Habs- 
burg  crowns,  was  assassinated,  together  with  his  wife,  in  the 


k 


14  A   BRIEF   HISTORY    OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

streets  of  the  Bosnian  city  of  Serajevo  by  youthful  Serb  conspir- 
ators. The  outrage  caused  an  instantaneous  outburst  of  in- 
dignation throughout  Austria-Hungary  and  Germany.  For  on 
Francis  Ferdinand  many  hopes  had  been  pinned.  His  piety  had 
made  him  a  favorite  with  Catholics ;  his  loyalty  to  the  German 
alliance  augured  well  for  the  future  maintenance  of  the  interna- 
tional soHdarity  of  the  two  great  Teutonic  Powers ;  his  vigorous 
patriotism  and  his  conscientious  fulfillment  of  administrative 
duties  were  harbingers  of  the  continued  integrity  and  stability 
of  the  Dual  Monarchy  after  the  demise  of  Francis  Joseph.  More- 
over, Francis  Ferdinand  was  supposed  to  favor  a  special  poHcy 
on.  the  part  of  Austria-Hungary  toward  the  Slavs  of  Southern 
Europe :  to  him  was  attributed  the  leadership  in  a  scheme  to 
transform  the  Dual  Monarchy  into  a  Triple  Monarchy,  in 
which  the  Serbs  of  Bosnia  and  the  Serbo-Croats  of  Croatia- 
Slavonia  and  probably  the  Slovenes  would  constitute  an  au- 
tonomous entity  resembling  Austria  and  Hungary ;  and  to  him, 
therefore,  was  imputed  by  patriotic  Serbians  and  Montenegrins 
the  inspiration  of  the  hostile  attitude  which  Austria-Hungary, 
with  Germany's  powerful  backing,  had  taken,  especially  since 
1908,  toward  the  territorial  expansion  of  the  two  independent 
Serb  kingdoms. 

Certainly  the  Serbs  disliked  Francis  Ferdinand  immensely  and 
certainly  from  1908  to  1914  they  organized  secret  societies  in 
Bosnia  as  well  as  in  Serbia  and  Montenegro  and  conducted  a  de- 
liberate propaganda  with  the  more  or  less  avowed  object  of  wholly 
detaching  the  South  Slav  peoples  from  the  Habsburg  Empire. 
Naturally,  then,  when  the  official  Austrian  investigation  into  the 
archduke's  assassination  indicated  that  the  plot  had  been  exe- 
cuted by  Bosnian  youths  animated  by  the  revolutionary  secret 
societies  of  the  Serbs  and  with  the  connivance  of  at  least  two  offi- 
cials of  the  kingdom  of  Serbia,  the  indignation  of  both  Germans 
and  Magyars  was  aroused.  The  government  of  Austria-Hungary 
solemnly  affirmed  that  the  very  existence  of  the  Dual  Monarchy 
depended  upon  putting  an  end  once  for  all  to  Serbian  machina- 
tions, and  with  practical  unanimity  the  responsible  press  of  Ger- 
many declared  that  Austria-Hungary's  welfare  was  Germany's 
welfare.  But  by  the  same  token  and  with  equal  unanimity  the 
press  of  Russia  declared  that  Serbia's  welfare  was  Russia's  wel- 
fare. A  new  crisis,  and  a  most  serious  one,  had  arisen  in  the 
Balkans. 

One  week  after  the  Serajevo  assassination,  a  conference  of 
German  and  Austrian  dignitaries  was  held  at  Potsdam.     Pre- 


i 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  15 

cisely  what  was  there  discussed  and  determined  upon  we  do  not 
know.  There  is  little  doubt,  however,  that  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  government  received  carte  blanche  to  use  the  archduke's 
murder  as  the  pretext  for  dealing  drastically  with  the  one  obstrep- 
erous Balkan  state  which  had  been  thwarting  the  full  realization 
of  Teutonic  poUtical  and  economic  aims  in  southeastern  Europe. 
As  recently  as  August,  1913,  Austria  had  formally  invited  Italy 
to  cooperate  with  her  in  crushing  Serbia.  At  that  time  no  good 
excuse  existed  for  such  a  use  of  force  and  Italy  had  declined  the 
invitation,  but  now  the  occasion  was  propitious  and  the  ruling 
classes  in  Germany  were  favorably  disposed.^  Perhaps  the  Ger- 
man dignitaries,  mindful  of  the  success  of  their  former  military 
threats  in  1 908-1 909  and  in  191 2-1 913,  entertained  the  idea  that 
if  Germany  were  now  again  to  stand  ''in  shining  armor"  beside 
her  ally,  Russia  would  once  more  back  down  and  leave  Serbia  to 
the  tender  mercy  of  Austria-Hungary.  It  would  be  Germany's 
role  by  threats  and  intimidation  to  keep  the  Balkan  conflict  ''lo- 
cahzed."  Assuredly  the  German  dignitaries  must  have  foreseen 
the  possibiHty  of  Russia's  not  backing  down  and  of  the  resulting 
precipitation  of  a  general  and  truly  Great  War.  But  such  a  war, 
precipitated  by  Austria's  act  and  Germany's  threat,  might  be 
the  heralded  ''preventive  war,"  through  which  Germany  would 
break  the  "iron  ring"  of  her  jealous  and  greedy  neighbors  and 
assume  in  the  wide  world  a  position  to  which  her  might  and  her 
Kultur  destined  her.  It  was  a  pecuHarly  opportune  moment  for 
provoking  the  ''preventive  war,"  for  at  that  very  moment  each 
one  of  the  Entente  Powers  was  embarrassed  by  domestic  diffi- 
culties ^  Russia  by  a  serious  and  violent  strike  of  workingmen 
in  Petrograd,  France  by  an  alarming  popular  opposition  to  the 
new  three-year  mihtary  law  and  by  a  scandalous  murder  trial  of 
political  importance  at  Paris,  and  Great  Britain  by  the  menace 
of  civil  war  in  Ireland.  It  was  time  to  cast  the  die,  and  whether 
strained  peace  or  vast  war  would  eventuate  was  a  minor  consider- 
ation to  the  Imperial  German  Government.  If  Russia  simply 
blustered,  Germany  would  gain  her  point;  if  Russia  fought, 
Germany  would  succeed  even  better.  It  would  be  another  in- 
stance of  "heads,  you  lose;    tails,  I  win." 

Such  at  any  rate  is  the  burden  of  the  testimony  of  a  conspicu- 
ous German  diplomatist,  Prince  Lichnowsky,  the  Kaiser's  am- 
bassador at  London  during  those  decisive  days.     In  a  private 

^  Italy,  though  an  ally  of  Austria-Hungary  and  Germany,  was  not  represented 
at  the  Potsdam  Conference  and  was  not  privy  to  the  Teutonic  plot  of  1914.  Italy's 
refusal  to  cooperate  with  Austria-Hungary  in  1913  probably  made  the  latter  quite 
wary  of  her  in  1914. 


i6  A   BRIEF    HISTORY   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

memorandum  prepared  in  191 6  and  indiscreetly  published  in 
March,  1918,  Prince  Lichnowsky  gives  the  most  damning  lie  to 
the  official  contention  of  his  government  that  it  had  had  no  prior 
knowledge  of  Austria's  plans  against  Serbia  and  that  it  had  been 
most  anxious  to  preserve  peace  and  thereto  had  counseled  moder- 
ation at  Vienna.  Referring  to  the  Potsdam  conference  of  July  5, 
19 14,  he  affirms  that  "  an  inquiry  addressed  to  us  by  Vienna  found 
positive  assent  among  all  personages  in  authority.  Indeed,  they 
added  that  there  would  be  no  harm  if  war  with  Russia  were  to 
result."  Prince  Lichnowsky,  who  from  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  members  of  the  British  government  had  come  to  believe 
impHcitly  in  the  pacific  purposes  and  poKcy  of  Great  Britain,  was 
greatly  perturbed  by  what  he  deemed  the  mistaken  pohcy  of  his 
own  government  in  backing  Austria-Hungary's  selfish  Balkan 
poUcy,  and  he  accordingly  besought  Herr  von  Jagow,  the  German 
foreign  secretary,  to  recommend  moderation  to  the  Austrians. 
''Herr  von  Jagow  answered  me  that  Russia  was  not  ready,  that 
there  doubtless  would  be  a  certain  amount  of  bluster,  but  the 
more  firmly  we  stood  by  Austria  the  more  would  Russia  draw 
back.  He  said  Austria  already  was  accusing  us  of  want  of  spirit 
and  we  must  not  squeeze  her ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  feel- 
ing in  Russia  was  becoming  more  an ti- German  and  so  we  must 
simply  risk  it."  If  any  confirmation  of  this  point  of  Prince  Lich- 
nowsky's  memorandum  is  required,  it  is  provided  by  the  reve- 
lations of  Dr.  Miihlon,  an  ex-director  of  the  Krupps,  who  learned 
from  high  German  officials  in  the  middle  of  July,  19 14,  that  the 
Kaiser  was  fully  cognizant  of  the  Austrian  purpose  and  that  it 
was  not  the  intention  of  the  German  government  to  maintain 
peace. 

Provided,  as  we  now  know,  with  secret  assurances  of  Germany's 
unqualified  support,  Austria-Hungary  presented  to  Serbia,  on 
July  23,  1 914,  an  ultimatum  couched  in  the  most  peremptory 
terms ;  it  breathed  a  ruthless  determination  to  crush  all  Pan- 
Serb  plotting  regardless  of  international  usage  or  of  constitutional 
formalities.  The  ultimatum  alleged  that,  by  failing  to  suppress 
an  ti- Austrian  conspiracies,  Serbia  had  violated  her  promise  of 
1909  to  ''live  on  good  neighborly  terms"  with  Austria-Hungary, 
and  had  compelled  the  government  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  to 
abandon  its  attitude  of  benevolent  and  patient  forbearance,  to 
put  an  end  "to  the  intrigues  which  form  a  perpetual  menace  to 
the  tranquilHty  of  the  Monarchy,"  and  to  demand  effective  guar- 
antees from  the  Serbian  government.  As  definite  guarantees  of 
good  behavior  Serbia  was  called  upon  to  suppress  anti- Austrian 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  17 

publications  and  societies,  to  discharge  such  governmental  em- 
ployees as  the  Austro-Hungarian  government  should  accuse  of 
anti-Austrian  propaganda,  to  exclude  anti-Austrian  teachers  and 
textbooks  from  the  Serbian  schools,  *'to  accept  the  collaboration 
in  Serbia  of  representatives  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  government 
for  the  suppression  of  the  subversive  movement  directed  against 
the  territorial  integrity  of  the  Monarchy,"  and  to  signify  uncon- 
ditional acceptance  of  these  and  the  other  Austro-Hungarian  de- 
mands within  forty-eight  hours. 

Thenceforth  events  marched  fast.  Russia,  France,  and  Great 
Britain  at  once  endeavored  to  obtain  from  Austria  an  extension 
of  the  time-limit  of  the  ultimatum  in  order  that  the  whole  ques- 
tion might  be  submitted  to  general  international  negotiation,  but 
to  international  anarchy  rather  than  to  international  cooperation 
Austria-Hungary  was  committed  and  she  sharply  declined  the 
request.  On  July  25,  Serbia  replied  to  the  ultimatum,  promising 
to  comply  with  such  demands  as  did  not  seem  to  impair  her  inde- 
pendence and  sovereignty  and  offering  to  refer  all  disputed  points 
to  the  Hague  Tribunal  or  to  a  conference  of  the  Great  Powers. 
The  Austrian  government  pronounced  the  reply  evasive  and  un- 
satisfactory, broke  off  diplomatic  relations  with  Serbia,  and 
started  the  mobilization  of  her  army.  The  Serbians  removed 
their  capital  from  Belgrade  to  Nish  and  began  a  counter-mobili- 
zation. War  was  clearly  impending  between  Austria-Hungary 
and  Serbia. 

But  a  much  vaster  and  more  terrible  war  was  impending.  To 
the  Russian  view  it  was  obvious  that  Austria-Hungary  was  plan- 
ning to  deprive  Serbia  of  independence  and  to  annihilate  Russian 
influence  in  southeastern  Europe.  On  the  other  hand  the  Ger- 
man government  insisted  that  the  quarrel  was  one  which  con- 
cerned Austria-Hungary  and  Serbia  alone :  it  consistently  and 
pertinaciously  opposed  the  repeated  efforts  of  Russian,  British, 
French,  and  even  Italian,  diplomatists  to  refer  the  quarrel  to  an 
international  congress  or  to  the  Hague  Tribunal.  Unequivocally 
Germany  declared  that  if  Russia  should  come  to  the  assistance 
of  Serbia,  she  would  support  Austria-Hungary  with  all  the  armed 
forces  at  her  command.  The  last  resort  of  an  anarchic  world 
was  in  a  test  of  physical  strength,  and  the  most  powerful  of  all 
the  Great  Powers,  thoroughly  possessed  of  the  demon  of  milita- 
rism, was  deaf  to  all  suggestions  of  negotiation  and  compromise 
and  by  threats  and  imprecations  was  pushing  the  whole  civilized 
world  to  that  ultimate  anarchic  test. 

On  July  28,  1914,  —  exactly  one  month  after  the  archduke's 


i8  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

assassination,  —  Austria-Hungary  formally  declared  war  against 
Serbia.  On  the  next  day  the  Russian  government  decreed  the 
mobilization  of  its  army.  On  August  i,  the  frantic  endeavors  of 
various  diplomatists  to  arrive  at  some  peaceful  solution  of  the 
Serbian  problem  were  rudely  arrested  by  the  outbreak  of  war 
between  Germany  and  Russia.  Germany  had  presented  a  twelve- 
hour  ultimatum  to  Russia,  demanding  immediate  and  complete 
demobilization ;  Russia  had  refused  to  comply ;  and  Germany 
had  declared  war. 

The  German  government  knew  that  war  with  Russia  was  hkely 
to  involve  France.  France  was  the  sworn  ally  of  Russia.  There 
was  popular  feeling  in  France  that  common  cause  must  be  made 
with  Russia  if  France  were  to  preserve  her  own  prestige  and  re- 
cover Alsace-Lorraine.  Accordingly,  on  the  very  day  of  deliver- 
ing the  ultimatum  to  Russia,  the  German  government  demanded 
to  know  within  eighteen  hours  what  would  be  the  attitude  of 
France ;  if  the  French  government  should  repudiate  its  alliance 
with  Russia  and  promise  to  observe  neutrahty,  the  German  am- 
bassador at  Paris  was  instructed  to  demand  that  the  powerful 
French  fortress  of  Toul  and  Verdun  be  handed  over  to  Germany 
for  the  duration  of  the  war.  Apparently  the  German  government 
was  resolved  thoroughly  to  humiliate,  if  not  to  crush,  France. 
The  French  government,  however,  gave  a  non-committal  answer 
to  the  German  ultimatum,  and  began  mobilization.  On  August  3 
Germany  declared  war  against  France. 

Thus,  within  a  week  of  the  declaration  of  hostilities  by  Austria- 
Hungary  against  Serbia,  four  Great  Powers  were  in  a  state  of  war 
—  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  against  Russia  and  France. 
The  attitude  of  the  other  two  Great  Powers  of  Europe  —  Great 
Britain  and  Italy  —  did  not  long  remain  in  doubt.  Italy  promptly 
proclaimed  her  neutrality,  on  the  ground  that  the  war  waged  by 
her  allies  was  not  defensive,  but  offensive,  and  that  therefore  she 
was  riot  bound  to  give  assistance  to  them.  Great  Britain,  how- 
ever, appeared  more  hesitant.  The  English  people  certainly 
had  sympathy  for  France  and  little  love  for  Germany,  and  the 
British  government,  though  liberal  and  pacifistic,  had  already  in- 
formed Germany  that,  while  their  country  was  not  formally  en- 
gaged to  help  France  or  Russia,  they  could  not  promise  in  case 
of  war  to  observe  neutrality.  By  August  2,  the  British  govern- 
ment had  gone  further  and  had  announced  that  they  would  not 
tolerate  German  naval  attacks  on  the  unprotected  western  coast 
of  France.  And  on  the  next  day  occurred  an  event  which  decided 
Great  Britain  to  enter  the  war  on  the  side  of  Russia  and  France. 


THE    GREAT   WAR    COMES  19 

On  August  2,  —  twenty-four  hours  before  the  formal  declara- 
tion of  war  by  Germany  against  France,  —  German  troops  were 
set  in  motion  toward  the  French  frontier,  not  directly  against  the 
strong  French  border  fortresses  of  Verdun,  Toul,  and  Belfort,  but 
toward  the  neutral  countries  of  Luxemburg  and  Belgium,  which 
lay  between  Germany  and  less  well-defended  districts  of  northern 
France.  Both  Germany  and  France  had  signed  treaties  to  respect 
the  neutrality  of  these  '^buffer  states,"  and  France  had  already 
announced  her  intention  of  adhering  loyally  to  her  treaty  en- 
gagements. But  on  August  2  German  troops  occupied  Luxem- 
burg in  spite  of  protests  from  the  grand-duchess  of  the  little  state ; 
and  on  the  same  day  the  German  government  presented  an  ulti- 
matum to  Belgium  demanding  within  twelve  hours  the  grant  of 
permission  to  move  German  troops  across  that  country  into 
France,  promising,  if  permission  were  accorded,  to  guarantee 
Belgian  independence  and  integrity  and  to  pay  an  indemnity,  and 
threatening  that,  if  any  resistance  should  be  encountered,  Ger- 
many would  treat  Belgium  as  an  enemy  and  that  "the  decision 
of  arms"  would  determine  the  subsequent  relations  between  the 
two  Powers.  The  Belgian  government  characterized  the  ulti- 
matum as  a  gross  violation  of  international  law  and  not  only 
refused  categorically  to  grant  Germany's  request  but  appealed  at 
once  to  Great  Britain  for  aid  in  upholding  the  neutrality  of  Bel- 
gium. 

The  neutrality  of  Belgium  had  long  been  a  cardinal  point  in 
the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain.  The  British  had  fought 
against  Napoleon  I  in  part  because  of  the  annexation  of  Belgium 
by  France,  and  they  had  opposed  the  threatened  aggression  of 
Napoleon  III  against  the  little  kingdom ;  they  were  not  likely  to 
view  with  favor  German  attacks  upon  Belgium  or  its  possible  in- 
corporation into  the  German  Empire.  On  August  4,  therefore, 
when  news  was  received  in  London  that  German  troops  had  ac- 
tually crossed  the  border  into  Belgium,  Sir  Edward  Grey,  the 
British  foreign  secretary,  dispatched  an  ultimatum  to  Germany, 
requiring  assurance  by  midnight  that  Germany  would  respect 
Belgian  neutrality.  Germany  refused,  on  the  ground  of  "mili- 
tary necessity,"  and  Bethmann-Hollweg,  the  German  chancellor, 
with  evidence  of  anger  and  disappointment,  rebuked  Great 
Britain  for  making  war  for  "a  scrap  of  paper."  The  next  day, 
Mr.  Asquith,  the  British  prime  minister,  announced  that  a  state 
of  war  existed  between  Great  Britain  and  Germany. 

On  August  6,  Austria-Hungary  declared  war  on  Russia.  On 
the  following  day  little  Montenegro  joined  her  fellow-Serb  state 


20  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF    THE    GREAT    WAR 

of  Serbia  against  Austria-Hungary.  On  August  9,  a  state  of 
war  was  proclaimed  between  Montenegro  and  Serbia,  on  one 
hand,  and  Germany,  on  the  other ;  on  August  13,  between  France 
and  Great  Britain,  on  one  hand,  and  Austria-Hungary,  on  the 
other.  This  completed  the  first  alignment  of  the  European 
Powers  in  the  Great  War:  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  on 
the  one  side,  against  Russia,  France,  Great  Britain,  Serbia,  Mon- 
tenegro, and  Belgium,  on  the  other.  It  was  speedily  evident  that 
the  opposing  combinations  were  fairly  evenly  matched  in  re- 
sources, in  prowess,  and  in  determination,  and  that  the  war  would 
be  not  only  terribly  expensive  but  horribly  destructive  and  long 
drawn  out.  There  was  no  sign  that  either  Germany  or  Austria- 
Hungary  would  consent  to  make  peace  separately ;  and  on  the 
other  side.  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia  mutually  engaged 
by  the  Pact  of  London,  of  September,  1914,  not  to  conclude  peace 
separately  nor  to  demand  terms  of  peace  without  the  previous 
agreement  of  each  of  the  others. 


CHAPTER  II 

GERMANY   CONQUERS  BELGIUM   AND   INVADES  FRANCE 

MOBILIZATION  AND   STRATEGY 

In  precipitating  the  Great  War,  the  German  militarists  had 
dictated  to  the  governments  and  the  diplomatists;  in  waging 
it,  they  dictated  to  the  nations.  No  European  people  was 
advised  of  the  actual  situation  until  war  had  been  declared,  and 
every  popular  demonstration  against  war  was  inexorably  sup- 
pressed. At  Berhn  meetings  of  Social  Democrats  and  pacifistic 
radicals  were  broken  up,  and  as  soon  as  war  was  proclaimed  a 
most  rigorous  censorship  of  the  press  was  enforced.  So  skillful 
were  the  German  Government's  pleas  ''that  the  sword  had 
been  thrust  into  its  hands,"  so  densely  ignorant  of  the  real 
facts  were  the  bulk  of  the  German  people,  so  patriotic  were  they 
all,  that  there  was  a  pathetically  general  and  speedy  acquiescence 
in  the  decision  of  the  militarists.  With  the  formal  order  for 
mobilization,  issued  in  Germany  on  August  i,  1914,  crowds 
surged  through  the  streets  of  Berlin  cheering  and  singing  patriotic 
songs.  The  war  found  the  German  nation  superbly  confident 
and  tremendously  loyal.  On  August  4  the  Reichstag  unani- 
mously passed  all  the  necessary  war  bills  and  authorized  extraor- 
dinary war  credits.  This  time  the  Social  Democrats  joined 
with  the  other  parties  in  applauding  the  Kaiser. 

If  an  aggressive  Power  could  so  instantly  command  the 
enthusiastic  support  of  all  its  citizens,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  peoples  obviously  attacked  should  rally  immediately  and 
whole-heartedly  to  the  military  aid  of  their  governments.  This 
was  what  happened  in  Serbia,  Russia,  Belgium,  and  France. 
Even  in  Great  Britain,  though  the  resignation  of  three  members 
of  the  cabinet  on  the  eve  of  hostilities  indicated  opposition  to 
entering  the  struggle,  the  appointment  of  Lord  Kitchener  as 
secretary  of  war  and  the  popularjfavor  accompanying  it  subse- 
quently signalized  the  triumph  of  the  war-spirit.  From  German 
sources  emanated  reports  that  a  serious  pacifist  and  Laborite 
resistance  was  being  encountered  by  the  British  government; 


22  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF   THE    GREAT   WAR 

on  the  contrary,  a  statement  issued  by  representatives  of  all 
sections  of  the  labor  movement  in  October,  19 14,  pledged  the 
loyal  support  of  the  British  working  classes  for  the  war  against 
German  militarism,  since  the  victory  of  the  German  army 
"  would  mean  the  death  of  democracy  in  Europe."  All  the 
independent  peoples  of  Europe  were  loyal  to  their  several  Govern- 
ments.    Truly  the  Great  War  was  to  be  a  War  of  the  Nations. 

Before  mihtary  operations  could  be  inaugurated  on  a  large 
scale  in  any  theater  of  the  war,  the  millions  of  men  composing 
the  *' citizen  armies"  of  the  various  Continental  belHgerents 
had  to  be  collected,  equipped,  and  sent  to  the  front,  that  is 
*' mobilized."  In  time  of  peace  each  nation  had  troops  scattered 
in  towns  and  camps  all  over  the  country.  Take  Germany  for 
example.  Germany's  standing,  or  ''peace,"  army  was  composed 
of  about  800,000  officers  and  men,  organized  in  twenty-five  army 
corps.  On  a  peace  footing,  an  army  corps  numbered  about 
20,000.  For  war  each  army  corps  was  raised  to  a  strength  of 
about  43,000  men  by  the  inclusion  of  ''active  reserves,"  i.e. 
men  who  had  recently  served  and  were  still  under  twenty-eight 
years  of  age.  This  gave  Germany  a  field  army  of  over  1,100,000 
young  trained  men.  Next,  the  Landwehr  or  second  line,  con- 
sisting of  trained  men  between  twenty-eight  and  thirty-nine 
years  of  age,  was  called  up  to  reenforce  the  first  fine.  The 
Landwehr  numbered  about  2,200,000.  The  third  line  or  Land- 
sturm  included  600,000  trained  men  of  middle  age,  who  would 
be  called  upon  for  special  aid  behind  the  front  and  for  defense 
against  invasion.  In  addition  Germany  had  at  least  500,000 
able-bodied  men  of  military  age  who  had  been  excused  from 
regular  military  service  and  could  be  used  in  case  of  war  to  replace 
the  wounded  and  killed.  Thus  there  were  mihtary  forces  in 
Germany,  already  trained,  amounting  to  4,400,000,  and  of  the 
untrained  enough  more  potential  soldiers  to  bring  up  the  grand 
total  to  nearly  seven  million  men.  War,  therefore,  meant 
military  service  for  some  member  of  almost  every  family. 

The  word  of  mobilization,  flashed  by  telegraph  to  every  corner 
of  the  German  Empire  on  August  i,  brought  the  active  reserves 
to  the  appointed  mobilizing  center  of  each  army  corps.  Some 
German  corps  were  mobilized  at  frontier  towns,  such  as  Strass- 
burg,  Metz,  Saarburg,  and  Coblenz.  Others  had  to  be  trans- 
ported by  rail  from  the  interior.  The  immensity  of  this  move- 
ment may  be  faintly  appreciated  when  one  considers  that  an 
army  corps  required  more  than  one  hundred  trains,  each  com- 
posed of  fifty-five  cars,  for  its  transportation.     Guns,  rations, 


GERMANY    CONQUERS   BELGIUM  23 

ammunition,  artillery,  clothing,  hospital  supplies,  trucks,  and 
horses  went  with  the  troops.  In  many  cases  the  rations  and 
horses  had  to  be  purchased  from  farmers  at  the  beginning  of 
mobilization,  and  motor  trucks  and  clothing  from  merchants. 
The  whole  railway  system  was  operated  by  miUtary  authorities 
on  a  special  schedule  calculated  to  bring  the  troops  to  the  front 
in  the  shortest  possible  time.  The  huge  national  army  was  a 
perfect  mechanism  whose  delicate  adjustments  might  be  thrown 
into  fatal  confusion  by  the  blunder  of  one  stupid  official  or  the 
delay  of  one  special  train.  Travelers  who  witnessed  the  Ger- 
man armies  concentrating  on  the  French  frontier  afhrm  that 
the  marvelous  German  mobilization  progressed  with  the  precision 
of  clockwork. 

In  France,  in  Austria-Hungary,  and  in  Russia,  mobilization 
was  slower  and  less  perfect  in  its  appointments.  But  most 
reports  confirm  the  impression  that  both  the  French  and  the 
Russian  armies  were  put  in  the  field  with  greater  celerity  and 
with  far  less  confusion  than  could  have  been  expected.  Great 
Britain,  alone  of  the  belHgerents,  did  not  have  the  general  com- 
pulsory military  service,  but  her  small  standing  army  of  250,000 
men  was  already  in  a  state  of  high  efficiency  and  preparedness ; 
a  hundred  thousand  volunteers  appeared  in  a  day  or  two ;  another 
army  of  half  a  million  was  recruited  with  little  difficulty ;  and 
it  was  estimated  that  Britain,  with  her  colonies  and  dependencies, 
could  within  three  years  send  four  million  men  to  the  theater 
of  war. 

No  less  perfect  than  the  organization  and  movement  of  the 
enormous  armies  was  the  equipment  with  which  they  fought. 
The  Great  War  was  to  be  a  war  of  machines,  waged  with  the 
help  of  every  deadly  device  science  could  invent.  A  feature 
of  the  conflict  in  the  Franco-Belgian  theater  was  the  new  Krupp 
ii-inch  howitzer,^  weighing  about  seven  tons,  hauled  by  power- 
ful motors,  and  capable  of  throwing  an  ii-inch  shell  at  any 
object  within  a  radius  of  five  miles.  But  the  surpassing  achieve- 
ment of  the  Krupp  gun-factory  at  Essen  in  the  early  stage  of 
the  war  was  the  production  of  a  16-inch  (42-centimeter)  siege- 
piece  which  could  be  transported  by  rail  and  readily  emplaced 
on  a  concrete  foundation.  From  this  mortar,  discharged  by 
electricity,  a  shell  one  meter  in  length,  weighing  almost  a  ton, 
and  filled  with  high  explosives,  could  be  hurled  some  fifteen  miles. 

^  A  "gun"  throws  its  projectile  in  almost  a  straight  line;  a  "howitzer"  dis- 
charges its  shell  at  an  angle  of  elevation  varying  from  fifteen  to  forty-five  degrees ; 
a  "mortar"  is  fired  at  a  still  greater  angle  of  elevation,  the  object  being  to  drop  a 
shell  on  the  top  of  a  fortification  or  behind  the  earthworks  of  the  enemy. 


24  A    BRIEF    HISTORY    OF    THE    GREAT    WAR 

In  the  field  much  smaller  guns  were  ordinarily  used.  The 
German  army  employed  a  three-inch  gun  capable  of  throwing 
twenty  15-pound  shells  a  minute  at  an  enemy  three  miles  away. 
The  French  field  gun  (the  famous  "75")  was  of  slightly  smaller 
bore  than  the  German,  but  of  greater  power  and  weight.  Ma- 
chine guns  were  used  on  both  sides  with  telHng  effect.  A  ma- 
chine gun  is  light  enough  to  be  packed  on  the  back  of  a  horse 
or  drawn  on  a  Hght  carriage ;  it  fires  from  five  hundred  to  seven 
hundred  shots  a  minute.  The  regular  arm  of  the  infantry  was, 
of  course,  the  rifle,  tipped  with  the  bayonet  for  hand-to-hand 
encounters ;  of  the  various  makes,  the  German  Mauser  possessed 
the  greatest  muzzle  velocity,  although  the  French  Lebel  had  a 
longer  effective  range. 

Airplanes,  whose  value  in  warfare  had  long  been  discussed, 
now  rendered  priceless  service,  not  only  for  general  reconnaissance 
but  also  in  locating  the  hostile  force  so  that  the  artillery  officers 
could  instruct  their  gunners  at  what  angle  to  fire  at  the  unseen 
enemy.  Even  more  important  than  the  airplane  was  the  automo- 
bile. Motor  cars  incased  in  steel  and  armed  with  rapid-fire 
guns  accompanied  the  German  cavalry  on  its  swift  advance. 
Speedy  automobiles  and  motorcycles  were  invaluable  for  com- 
munication where  telephone,  telegraph,  or  airplane  was  not 
available.  Enormous  motor  trucks,  often  provided  with  mon- 
ster searchlights,  were  ceaselessly  employed  in  conveying  incal- 
culable quantities  of  foodstuffs. 

The  Great  War  originated  as  a  struggle  on  the  part  of  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Germany  against  the  *' Slavic  Peril,"  against  the 
great  Slav  empire  of  Russia  and  the  small  Slav  kingdoms  of 
Serbia  and  Montenegro.  But  from  the  very  beginning  of  hos- 
tilities, Teutonic  defense  against  Russia  was  of  minor  interest 
as  compared  with  the  attack  on  Belgium  and  France.  The  reason 
was  quite  simple.  The  German  General  Staff  had  planned  to 
hurl  the  bulk  of  the  German  army  first  against  France  and  then, 
having  crushed  France,  to  transfer  it  to  the  east  to  turn  back 
the  tide  of  Russia's  slow-mobiKzing  multitudes.  For  Russia, 
with  all  her  180  millions  of  inhabitants  in  Europe  and  in  Asia, 
was  spread  over  so  vast  an  area  and  was  so  deficient  in  railways 
that  ten  of  her  thirty-six  army  corps  could  not  arrive  on  the  scene 
within  two  months,  and  the  remaining  twenty-six  were  not 
expected  to  begin  a  serious  attack  within  the  first  few  weeks 
of  the  war.  Germany  would  leave  a  small  force  of  her  own  to 
cooperate  with  Austro-Hungarian  armies  in  holding  back  the 


GERMANY    CONQUERS    BELGIUM  25 

Russian  advance-guard,  while  with  the  rest  she  would  overwhelm 
France.  The  German  armies  in  the  west  would  sweep  across 
Belgium  —  with  its  network  of  convenient  railways  and  smooth 
highways  —  turning  the  flank  of  the  strong  line  of  French  forti- 
fications along  the  Franco- German  frontier,  and  swoop  down 
upon  Paris  with  irresistible  might.  The  French  army  anni- 
hilated, the  German  troops  could  be  shifted  from  the  west  to 
the  east  (it  is  less  than  600  miles  from  Belgium  to  Russia,  that 
is,  about  the  distance  from  New  York  to  Cleveland),  and  reserves 
could  be  brought  up  to  defeat  the  oncoming  Russians. 

The  French  plan  of  defense  had  originally  been  based  on  the 
assumption  that  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  and  Luxemburg  would 
be  respected.  To  appreciate  the  importance  of  the  neutrality 
of  these  "buffer"  states,  one  needs  only  to  observe  that  with 
Belgium  and  Luxemburg  neutral,  approximately  half  of  the 
northern  frontier  of  France  was  immune  from  attack.  The 
eastern  half  of  that  frontier,  from  Luxemburg  to  Switzerland, 
was  defended  by  the  Vosges  mountains  and  by  a  line  of  for- 
tified towns  from  Verdun  through  Toul  and  Epinal  to  Belfort. 
French  mobilization,  moreover,  was  directed  so  as  to  place 
the  main  strength  of  the  French  army  in  the  trenches  and 
forts  along  the  Franco- German  frontier  proper,  if  not  actually 
to  take  the  offensive  in  this  region.  If  the  Germans  endeav- 
ored to  strike  into  France  from  Lorraine,  they  would  encounter 
the  bulk  of  the  French  army  intrenched  along  a  strong  line  of 
defense. 

As  events  proved,  the  German  military  authorities  had  deter- 
mined to  deliver  the  chief  attack  not  from  Lorraine  but  from 
Belgium  and  Luxemburg.  By  adopting  this  cojirse,  Germany 
brought  150,000  Belgians  into  the  field  as  enemies  and  three 
British  army  corps  whom  Lord  Kitchener  dispatched  as  an 
Expeditionary  Force  to  aid  the  French  and  Belgians.  But  the 
immediate  advantages  to  be  gained  were  considered  more  im- 
portant by  the  Germans  than  the  addition  of  300,000  soldiers 
to  the  enemy's  ranks.  The  Belgian  forces  were  of  the  nature  of 
miHtia  rather  than  of  a  perfect  military  machine ;  and  the  small 
British  Expeditionary  Force  —  all  that  un-military  Great  Britain 
could  at  that  time  put  in  the  field  —  was  referred  to  by  the 
Kaiser  as  a  ''contemptible  little  army."  As  yet  the  Germans 
had  formed  no  idea  of  the  dogged  determination  and  enormous 
resources  of  the  British,  and  they  failed  utterly  to  comprehend 
the  strength  of  the  moral  indignation  with  which  the  whole  world 
would  view  the  violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality.     It  was  the 


26  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF    THE    GREAT   WAR 

price  they  must  pay  for  intrusting  all  decisions  to  the  mihtarists 
and  for  basing  all  actions  on  ''mihtary  necessity." 

Meanwhile  the  attack  on  France  by  way  of  Belgium  appealed 
irresistibly  to  the  German  mihtary  mind.  In  the  first  place, 
through  Belgium  and  Luxemburg,  German  armies  would  have 
two  natural  routes  leading  into  the  heart  of  France.  The 
northern  route,  leading  from  the  German  military  bases  at 
Cologne  and  Aix-la-Chapelle  through  Liege,  Namur,  and  Mau- 
beuge,  was  that  of  the  main  railway  between  Berlin  and  Paris ; 
the  network  of  roads  and  railways  in  Belgium  and  northern 
France  would  facilitate  the  transportation  of  troops  and  sup- 
plies, and  the  comparatively  level  country  would  admit  of  the 
extensive  use  of  the  famous  Krupp  howitzers.  The  other  route 
followed  the  Moselle  valley  from  the  German  base  of  Coblenz 
on  the  Rhine  through  Trier  up  to  Luxemburg  and  thence  entered 
France  at  Longwy  and  passed  south  to  Verdun. 

In  the  second  place,  the  French  did  not  possess  such  formidable 
defenses  along  the  frontier  opposite  Belgium  and  Luxemburg 
as  those  opposite  Lorraine  and  Alsace :  Dunkirk,^  Lille,  and 
Maubeuge  could  not  compare  with  Verdun,  Toul,  Epinal,  and 
Belfort.  In  the  third  place,  the  use  of  routes  through  the 
'' buffer"  states  would  enable  the  German  General  Staff  to  put 
its  entire  effective  forces  immediately  in  the  field  and  to  use 
them  in  decisive  flanking  movements  rather  than  in  protracted 
frontal  attacks.  Finally,  and  perhaps  this  was  the  most  impor- 
tant consideration,  a  swift  incursion  of  German  armies  by  way 
of  Belgium  and  Luxemburg  would  compel  the  French  army  to 
change  the  front  of  its  mobilization  from  the  Lorraine  frontier 
to  the  Belgian ;  and  in  attempting  to  re-form  its  lines  the  French 
army  might  conceivably  be  thrown  into  such  confusion  and 
disorder  that  a  gigantic  victory  —  a  Sedan  on  a  colossal  scale  — 
might  be  won  by  the  Germans.  This  was  the  supreme  purpose 
of  German  strategy,  to  demoralize  and  break  up  the  French 
field  army.     Paris  could  be  taken  later. 

The  nineteen  army  corps  which  Germany  had  immediately 
available  for  the  invasion  of  France  were  grouped  in  seven 
great  armies;  three  were  detailed  to  cut  a  swath  through  cen- 
tral Belgium,  past  Maubeuge,  and  down  the  Oise;  two  were 
sent  through  Luxemburg  and  southeastern  Belgium  (Belgian 
Luxemburg) ;  and  two  were  stationed  in  Alsace-Lorraine.  The 
seven  main  armies  were:  (i)  General  von  Kluck's  army,  north 
of  the  Meuse;  (2)  General  von  Billow's,  south  of  the  Meuse; 
(3)  General  von  Hansen's,  directed  against  Givet;    (4)  Duke 


^^^r- 


4 "       Longitude 


GERMANY    CONQUERS   BELGIUM  27 

Albert  of  Wiirttemberg's,  directed  against  southeastern  Belgium ; 
(5)  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince's,  occupying  Luxemburg;  (6) 
the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince's,  based  on  Metz ;  (7)  General  von 
Heeringen's,  based  on  Strassburg.  It  seemed  a  happy  omen 
that  over  all  these  armies  the  supreme  German  commander, 
the  chief  of  the  General  Staff,  was  Helmuth  von  Moltke,  a  nephew 
of  that  illustrious  Moltke  who  had  overwhelmed  France  in  1870. 
A  detachment  of  the  first  army  was  intrusted  to  General  von 
Emmich  for  the  immediate  task  of  seizing  Liege. 

THE   CONQUEST  OF  BELGIUM 

From  the  German  frontier,  opposite  Aix-la-Chapelle,  to  the 
gap  of  the  Gise,  on  the  Franco-Belgian  frontier,  it  would  be  six 
days'  march  for  an  unresisted  German  army.  But  the  Belgians 
were  unanimously  and  heroically  determined  to  resist  Germany's 
outrageous  violation  of  their  country's  neutrality.  In  the  face 
of  national  disaster,  and  in  an  unparalleled  outburst  of  national 
patriotism,  even  the  most  fundamental  party  differences  and 
social  distinctions  were  swept  aside.  ''Irreconcilable"  Socialists 
sprang  to  the  support  of  their  plucky  King;  and  the  SociaHst 
leader,  Emile  Vandervelde,  entered  the  Catholic  cabinet  on 
August  4.  Belgium  had  nothing  to  gain  from  the  war ;  she  was 
resolved  that  it  should  not  take  from  her  the  most  priceless 
treasure  of  her  plighted  word  and  national  honor. 

Situated  just  across  the  Belgian  frontier  and  directly  in  the 
path  of  the  German  advance  from  Cologne  up  the  valley  of  the 
Meuse  was  the  strongly  fortified  city  of  Liege.  Against  Liege 
the  detachment  of  General  von  Emmich  struck  on  August  4. 
So  anxious  were  the  German  military  authorities  not  to  lose  time, 
that  Emmich  recklessly  sacrificed  his  men  in  futile  attempts 
to  carry  the  city  by  assault.  Compact  masses  of  German  sol- 
diery were  hurled  against  the  Belgian  forts,  only  to  be  mowed 
down  by  murderous  artillery  fire  or  annihilated  by  exploding 
mines.  Assault  failing,  Emmich  brought  up  giant  42-centi- 
meter howitzers  which  speedily  demolished  some  of  the  forts 
encircling  the  city  and  enabled  the  Germans  to  enter  the  town 
on  August  7.  It  was  not  until  eight  days  later,  however,  that 
the  last  of  the  encircling  forts  was  silenced. 

After  the  fall  of  Liege,  the  German  cavalry  swept  over  the 
neighboring  country  and  the  German  armies  penetrated  Bel- 
gium. Constant  skirmishing  marked  the  retirement  of  the  main 
Belgian  force  to  its  principal  line  of  defense  at  Louvain.     There, 


k 


28  A   BRIEF   HISTORY   OF   THE   GREAT   WAR 

on  August  19,  the  Belgian  army  made  its  last  important  stand 
against  overwhelming  odds,  was  defeated,  and  the  greater  part 
of  it  was  driven  back  in  a  northwesterly  direction  on  Malines 
and  Antwerp.  General  von  Kluck,  after  dispatching  a  force 
to  press  the  retreat  of  the  Belgians  northward,  entered  Brussels 
on  August  20,  and  then,  with  the  principal  part  of  his  army, 
swung  southward  in  the  direction  of  Mons  and  Maubeuge. 
Meanwhile,  the  armies  of  General  von  Hansen  and  Duke  Albert 
of  Wiirttemberg  were  striking  into  the  hilly  country  of  the  Ar- 
dennes in  southeastern  Belgium;  and  between  the  forces  of 
Kluck  and  Hansen,  General  von  Blilow  was  pursuing  a  small 
Belgian  detachment  up  the  Meuse  to  the  fortress  of  Namur. 
On  August  22  Namur  succumbed  to  Bulow's  siege  howitzers, 
and  the  way  was  at  length  cleared  for  a  German  invasion  of 
France.  Belgian  resistance  had  meant  that  the  German  march 
across  Belgium  had  taken  eighteen  days  instead  of  six  and  that 
both  the  French  and  the  British  had  been  given  a  longer  respite 
in  which  to  prepare  their  defense. 

The  French  were  unable  to  come  to  the  immediate  assistance 
of  the  Belgians,  because  their  mobihzation,  as  the  enemy  an- 
ticipated, was  proceeding  along  the  Franco- German  frontier 
proper,  and  General  Jofifre,  the  French  commander-in-chief, 
was  unwilling  to  risk  too  sudden  a  disarrangement  of  his  plans. 
As  some  relief  to  the  hard-pressed  Belgians,  however,  General 
Jofifre  ordered  a  counter-ofifensive  against  Alsace-Lorraine. 
In  the  extreme  south,  an  army  stepped  over  into  Alsace  at  Alt- 
kirch,  carried  the  German  trenches  there  on  August  7,  and  on 
the  next  day  occupied  the  city  of  Miilhausen.  Driven  out, 
the  French  reentered  Miilhausen  on  August  19.  General  Paul 
Pau  was  in  actual  charge  of  this  invasion  of  Alsace  and  was 
hailed  as  a  liberator  by  a  large  part  of  the  population,  which 
had  never  ceased  to  long  for  reunion  with  France,  although 
more  than  a  generation  had  passed  since  Alsace-Lorraine  was 
appropriated  by  German  conquerors.  General  Pau's  forces 
penetrated  as  far  north  as  Colmar. 

Simultaneously  other  troops  mastered  the  difficult  passes  of 
the  Vosges  mountains  and  descended  from  the  west  into  the 
Alsatian  valleys.  Further  north,  General  Castelnau  with  five 
army  corps  invaded  Lorraine,  and  took  Saarburg  on  August 
18.  But  here  the  French  advance  was  halted.  With  slower 
mobilization,  Joffre  was  unable  to  reenforce  the  army  corps  in 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  at  the  same  time  to  take  needful  measures 
of  precaution  against  the  rapidly  growing  German  menace  from 


GERMANY    CONQUERS   BELGIUM  29 

Belgium  and  Luxemburg.  French  armies  had  to  be  moved  up 
to  face  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg  and  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince 
in  the  region  of  the  forest  of  the  Ardennes  in  southeastern  Bel- 
gium. Another  French  army,  under  General  Lanrezac,  had  to 
be  dispatched  to  the  Belgian  border,  for  the  two  or  three  British 
corps  which  had  been  hurried  to  France  and  which  by  August 
21  had  managed  to  take  up  a  defensive  position  north  of  Mau- 
beuge  on  a  line  from  Conde  in  France  to  Mons  in  Belgium, 
were  far  too  few  to  make  a  decisive  stand  against  the  German 
hordes ;  General  Lanrezac  took  position,  on  the  British  right 
flank,  in  the  angle  formed  between  the  Sambre  and  Meuse  rivers 
south  of  Namur. 

In  the  four  days,  August  20-23,  the  advanced*  Franco-British 
lines  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  stay  the  German  conquest 
of  Belgium,  and  the  French  counter-offensive  in  Alsace-Lorraine 
definitely  failed.  In  Lorraine,  General  Castelnau's  invading 
army  was  attacked  from  three  sides  at  once  by  General  von 
Heeringen,  the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince,  and  garrison  forces 
from  Metz.  For  the  first  time  under  fire,  one  French  corps 
suddenly  gave  way,  and  Castelnau  was  able  to  extricate  his 
defeated  army  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  He  now  took 
the  defensive  before  Nancy.  In  southern  Alsace,  the  French 
invaders  were  compelled  to  retreat  as  rapidly  as  they  had  ad- 
vanced and  to  abandon  nearly  all  the  ground  they  had  won. 
The  French  counter-offensive  had  been  politically  advantageous 
in  that  it  had  strengthened  French  morale  and  had  stirred  up 
all  France  to  seek  the  reconquest  of  the  ''lost  provinces,"  but 
from  a  strictly  miHtary  standpoint  it  had  been  unsuccessful  if 
not  disastrous. 

There  remained  the  principal  business  of  giving  aid  to  the  hard- 
pressed  Belgians  and  of  checking  the  flood  of  German  invasion 
before  it  had  rolled  quite  to  the  French  frontier.  On  August 
20,  with  the  arrival  of  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  under 
Field  Marshal  Sir  John  French  and  with  the  posting  of  a  French 
army  south  of  Namur  and  of  two  other  French  armies  in  the 
Ardennes,  General  Joffre  gave  orders  for  an  offensive. 

On  the  next  two  days  the  French  offensive  in  southeastern 
Belgium  broke  down  completely.  ''There  were  imprudences 
committed  under  German  fire,  divisions  ill-engaged,  rash  deploy- 
ments, a  premature  waste  of  men,  and  a  notable  incompetence 
of  certain  French  troops  and  their  commanders."  ^  The  French 
were  soon  in  precipitate  retreat  from  the  Ardennes  toward  Sedan, 
^  From  the  French  official  report. 


30  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Montmedy,  and  Longwy,  across  the  border.  To  the  west,  the 
Allies  still  had  a  chance  of  success  if  General  Lanrezac's  army 
and  the  British  could  obtain  a  decisive  result. 

This  was  unfortunately  not  the  case.  General  Lanrezac's 
right  flank  was  too  exposed  as  a  result  of  the  French  retirement 
from  the  Ardennes,  and  by  the  fall  of  Namur  on  August  22  he 
was  exposed  to  the  powerful  blows  of  Billow's  army.  After  a 
savage  struggle  at  Charleroi  on  August  22-23,  he  retired  up  the 
Meuse  to  the  French  border  towns  of  Givet  and  Maubeuge. 
Now  the  British  army  was  endangered :  it  lacked  support  on 
its  right,  and  in  front  and  on  the  left  appeared  four  German 
army  corps.  Obviously  General  von  Kluck  intended  to  over- 
whelm the  two  British  corps  and  turn  the  flank  of  the  allied 
line.  UnwilHng  to  be  either  outflanked  or  overwhelmed,  General 
French  abandoned  his  precarious  position  after  a  hot  contest 
at  Mons,  August  23-24,  and  conducted  a  hasty  retreat  —  an 
orderly  flight,  one  might  say  —  back  into  France.  Trenches 
had  been  prepared  at  the  line  Cambrai-Le  Cateau-Landrecies ; 
but  the  continued  pressure  of  Kluck's  superior  numbers  forced 
the  British  to  continue  their  flight.  In  six  days'  retreat,  hotly 
pursued  by  Kluck's  cavalry  and  armored  motor  cars,  strugghng 
desperately  to  prevent  its  artillery  and  supplies  from  falling 
into  the  enemy's  hands,  the  little  British  army  lost  230  officers 
and  13,413  men. 

Most  of  Belgium  was  conquered  by  the  Germans  and  the  route 
to  France  was  now  cleared. 

THE  INVASION  OF  FRANCE 

The  sensational  retreat  of  Sir  John  French  from  Belgium 
far  back  into  France  should  be  regarded  as  but  one  detail  of  the 
general  strategic  retreat  ordered  by  General  Joffre  after  the 
French  defeats  of  August  20-23.  The  fate  of  the  whole  French 
army  depended  upon  avoiding  a  decisive  battle  until  the  French 
forces  could  be  concentrated  upon  an  advantageous  battle-Hne 
and  could  confront  the  Germans  with  equal  or  superior  numbers. 
It  would  have  been  folly  to  rush  troops  northward  to  sure  defeat. 
General  Joffre,  therefore,  ordered  a  strategic  retreat  southward. 

Into  France  poured  the  German  armies.  Occasionally  they 
were  obstructed  for  a  few  hours  by  a  fortress-garrison  or  by  the 
allies'  turning  at  bay  in  order  to  save  the  retreat  from  becoming 
a  rout.  Past  the  border  towns  of  Lille,  Valenciennes,  Maubeuge, 
Mezieres,  Montmedy,  and  Longwy  swept  the  German  forces 


GERMANY  CONQUERS  BELGIUM  31 

down  over  northern  France.  By  September  2  the  invasion  had 
progressed  far.  General  von  Kluck's  army  had  passed  Com- 
piegne;  General  von  Bulow  had  reached  Laon;  General  von 
Hausen  had  crossed  the  Aisne  near  Attigny ;  the  duke  of  Wiirt- 
temberg  and  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince  had  advanced  to  the 
upper  Aisne  and  taken  positions  between  Vouziers  and  Verdun ; 
to  the  east,  the  sixth  and  seventh^  German  armies  faced  the 
French  fortresses  of  Verdun,  Toul,  Epinal,  and  Belfort. 

Hastily  the  French  government-ofhces  were  removed  from 
Paris  to  Bordeaux ;  General  Gallieni  began  to  prepare  the  metrop- 
olis for  siege ;  and  as  General  von  Kluck,  on  the  extreme  German 
right,  swiftly  pursued  the  British  and  a  newly  organized  French 
army  southward,  until  the  din  of  battle  could  be  heard  by  the 
Parisians,  the  prediction  seemed  about  to  be  verified  that  the 
Germans  would  be  in  Paris  six  weeks  after  the  declaration  of 
war.  By  September  5,  though  the  eastern  fortresses  of  France 
were  still  holding,  the  Germans  were  threatening  them  from  the 
rear  and  were  already  in  possession  of  St.  Menehould,  Chalons, 
and  Esternay. 

After  their  long  and  exhausting  retreat  the  French  armies 
stood  with  their  left  resting  on  Paris,  their  right  holding  Verdun, 
and  their  center  sagging  south  of  the  Marne.  In  reahty  Verdun 
was  a  central  salient  extending  far  into  the  German  Hnes  rather 
than  the  extreme  right  of  the  French  Hnes,  for  in  the  east  French 
and  German  armies  faced  each  other  from  Verdun  to  the  Swiss 
border  in  a  line  almost  at  right  angles  with  the  Paris-Verdun 
line.  The  French  armies  had  now  reached  the  ultimate  points 
of  retreat ;  for  the  first  time  they  and  the  British  army  were 
in  touch  with  one  another  all  along  the  line ;  and  on  September 
5  General  Joffre  issued  his  famous  order  for  commencing  the 
battle  of  the  Marne.  *'The  hour  has  come,"  he  wrote,  ''to 
advance  at  all  costs,  and  to  die  where  you  stand  rather  than 
give  way." 

On  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  the  German  General 
Staff  was  preparing  to  deliver  a  crushing  blow  against  the  French 
armies.  On  the  extreme  right  of  the  German  line.  General 
Kluck  had  suddenly  swerved  from  north  of  Paris  toward  the 
southeast  and  was  marching  on  Meaux  and  Coulommiers.  Ob- 
viously it  was  planned  for  him  to  cooperate  with  Generals  Biilow 
and  Hausen  in  concentrating  the  force  of  a  gigantic  and  decisive 
blow  against  the  center  of  the  Paris- Verdun  allied  line,  between 
Sezanne  and  Vitry-le-Frangois.  If  the  Germans  could  break 
through  the  center,  the  French  armies  would  be  separated ;  those 


32  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

in  the  west  might  be  driven  into  Paris  and  obliged  in  time  to 
surrender,  while  those  in  the  east  would  be  ground  to  pieces  on 
the  Verdun-Belfort  Kne  of  fortresses  between  the  armies  of  the 
Prussian  Crown  Prince,  and  the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince,  and 
General  von  Heeringen. 

The  French  center  stood  firm  against  the  German  onset, 
however,  and  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  September  6-12,  marked 
the  culmination  and  the  decline  of  the  German  invasion.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  ''battle  of  the  Marne"  is  merely  a  conven- 
tional name  to  designate  a  whole  series  of  desperate  battles 
that  were  waged  almost  simultaneously  along  the  entire  Kne  from 
Paris  to  Belfort.  On  the  extreme  west  of  the  line  a  brilliant 
manoeuver  of  the  allies  led  to  a  serious  German  reverse.  Here 
a  newly  organized  French  army  under  General  Maunoury, 
moving  out  eastward  from  Paris,  fell  upon  the  right  of  Kluck's 
exposed  forces.  Turning  west  to  confront  these  new  assailants, 
Kluck  was  attacked  from  the  south  by  Sir  John  French's  British 
army  and  from  the  southeast  by  a  French  army  under  General 
Franchet  d'Esperey.  By  dint  of  desperate  fighting  he  escaped 
from  the  jaws  of  the  Anglo-French  trap  and  gradually  shifted 
his  army  northwards  to  shake  off  the  French  forces  which  clung 
to  his  right  flank.  The  harder  Kluck  was  pressed,  the  fiercer 
were  the  attacks  which  the  Germans  directed  at  the  French 
center,  particularly  in  the  neighborhood  of  Sezanne  and  Fere- 
Champenoise.  Here  was  the  most  critical  position,  and  here 
was  the  most  furious  fighting.  That  the  French  were  able 
at  this  crucial  point  not  only  to  hold  their  own  but  to  force  the 
Germans  back  was  due  to  the  heroism  and  elan  of  the  common 
soldiers  and  to  the  remarkable  military  genius  of  their  com- 
manding officer.  General  Ferdinand  Foch.  Foch's  brilliant 
qualities  were  supremely  tested  at  Fere-Champenoise.  With- 
out his  army  and  his  generalship,  the  battle  of  the  Marne  might 
have  been  a  signal  disaster  to  France. 

Even  the  alHed  manoeuver  against  -Kluck  and  the  success  of 
Foch  might  not  have  availed  the  French  in  the  extended  battle 
of  the  Marne  if  the  Germans  had  been  able  in  the  east  to  turn 
the  Hne  of  French  fortresses  extending  from  Verdun  to  Belfort. 
The  Germans  did  their  best  to  turn  this  Hne.  While  the  armies 
of  the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince  and  General  von  Heeringen  en- 
deavored to  batter  the  fortifications  from  the  direction  of  Lor- 
raine and  Alsace,  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince  was  struggling  to 
penetrate  south  through  the  region  of  the  Argonne,  between 
Verdun  and  the  rest  of  France,  and  thereby  to  complete,  from 


GERMANY  CONQUERS  BELGIUM  33 

the  west,  the  surrounding  of  the  fortified  line.  The  fate  that 
had  already  overtaken  Liege,  Namur,  and  the  fortresses  of 
northern  France  made  the  French  properly  apprehensive  of 
trusting  to  the  protection  of  forts  against  heavy  German  artillery. 
The  French  understood  that  the  defense  of  Verdun  and  the 
other  eastern  fortresses  would  have  to  be  undertaken  in  the  field. 
Thus  it  transpired  that,  at  the  very  moment  when  at  the  west 
Kluck  was  being  forced  back  and  in  the  center  Foch  was  valiantly 
gaining  ground,  French  armies  were  fighting  equally  decisive 
battles  in  the  Argonne  and  before  Nancy.  In  the  Argonne, 
General  Sarrail  finally  stopped  the  advance  of  the  Prussian 
Crown  Prince.  Before  Nancy,  General  Castelnau,  with  superb 
tenacity,  held  his  position  against  the  superior  numbers  of  the 
easternmost  German  armies  and  even  forced  them  back  to  the 
Vosges  mountains. 

Against  the  solid  wall  of  French  resistance,  German  attacks 
were  everywhere  unavailing.  Everywhere  the  French  advanced : 
they  recrossed  the  Marne ;  they  retook  Chalons  and  Rheims ; 
they  were  not  halted  until  they  had  reached  the  Aisne  and  had 
delivered  the  eastern  fortresses  from  immediate  danger. 

Such  was  the  seven  days'  battle  of  the  Marne,  in  which  more 
than  two  millions  of  men  were  engaged.  It  was  won  by  troops 
who  for  two  weeks  had  been  retreating  and  who  had  to  meet 
practically  the  whole  German  army.  In  spite  of  the  fatigue  of 
the  allied  forces,  in  spite  of  the  German  heavy  artillery,  the  vic- 
torious armies  captured  an  enormous  quantity  of  supplies  and 
thousands  of  prisoners.  The  battle  of  the  Marne  completely 
upset  the  strategy  of  the  German  General  Staff.  It  signified 
that  while  France  might  be  invaded,  France  was  not  to  be 
crushed  and  conquered^ 

When  the  French  and  British  pushed  north  after  the  battle 
of  the  Marne,  they  were  halted  abruptly  on  September  12  at 
the  Aisne.  It  was  soon  clear  that  the  Germans  were  not  simply 
pausing  in  their  retreat  l^ut  were  occupying  a  battle-line  of  great 
natural  strength,  prepared  with  trenches  for  infantry  and  with 
concrete  foundations  for  the  big  German  guns.  From  the  hiUs 
of  Noyon,  just  north  of  where  the  Aisne  flows  into  the  Oise, 
the  line  followed  the  heights  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Aisne 
as  far  as  Berry-au-Bac  and  then,  leaving  the  Aisne,  it  bent  south- 
ward almost  to  Rheims  and  extended  across  the  forested  ridge 
of  the  Argonne  to  the  region  of  Verdun.  A  French  drive  was 
directed  northward  against  Laon ;  a  German  drive,  southward 
against   Rheims.     Both   were    checked.     After   an   excessively 


34 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


vigorous  and  destructive  bombardment  of  Rheims  on  September 
19-20,  the  battle  along  the  Aisne  practically  came  to  a  close, 
although  the  opposing  armies  viewed  each  other  fiercely  from 
their  parallel  lines  of  trenches. 

While  the  armies  in  the  center  were  coming  to  a  deadlock, 
events  of  great  interest  were  transpiring  on  both  wings.  On 
the  east,  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince  sent  large  forces  to  cut  in 


south  of  Verdun.  The  Germans  had  already  reduced  the  fort 
of  Troyon,  just  south  of  Verdun,  and  had  reached  St.  Mihiel, 
a  little  further  south  on  the  Meuse,  thus  threatening  to  surround 
Verdun,  when  the  French  reenforced  their  line  at  this  point.  St. 
Mihiel  continued,  however,  to  be  an  additional  outer  defense  for 
Metz  and  a  possible  starting  point  for  a  strong  German  offensive. 
In  upper  Alsace  the  French  managed  to  cHng  to  the  town  of 
Thann  as  a  base  for  further  operations  in  the  *'lost  provinces." 


GERMANY  CONQUERS  BELGIUM  35 

On  the  west  of  the  long  battle-Hne,  the  Germans  and  the 
French  engaged  in  a  *'race  to  the  sea."  French  troops  were 
hurried  northward  by  way  of  Amiens  in  the  hope  of  enveloping 
the  right  wing  of  General  von  Kluck's  army,  and  German  troops 
were  hastily  marched  northward  to  frustrate  the  French  flanking 
movement.  The  net  result  was  the  extension  of  the  battle-line, 
almost  at  right  angles  with  the  Aisne  sector,  from  Noyon  to 
Flanders  and  the  Channel  coast.  The  Germans  possessed  them- 
selves of  Cambrai,  Douai,  and  Lille ;  the  French  saved  Amiens, 
Arras,  Ypres,  and  Dunkirk. 

Since  the  last  days  of  August  the  small  Belgian  army  had 
been  annoying  the  Germans  by  occasionally  sallying  forth  from 
its  positions  at  Malines  and  Antwerp.  So  long  as  these  cities 
remained  in  Belgian  hands,  they  constituted  potential  points 
of  support  for  a  large  Franco-British  expedition  which  might  be 
landed  on  the  northern  Belgian  coast  and  thence  harass  the 
rear  of  the  German  line.  On  September  27  the  Germans  bom- 
barded and  occupied  Malines,  and  on  the  following  day  began 
in  earnest  to  attack  the  supposedly  impregnable  stronghold  of 
Antwerp.  A  small  force  of  British  and  French  bluejackets 
was  sent  to  the  aid  of  the  defenders,  but  too  small  to  be  of  any 
avail.  The  German  artillery  pounded  the  Belgian  fortifications 
to  bits.  During  the  night  of  October  8  the  allied  forces  forsook 
the  doomed  city,  and  on  the  following  day  the  Germans  entered 
in  triumph.  The  survivors  of  the  heroic  little  Belgian  army 
were  transferred  to  the  extreme  left  flank  of  the  allied  line  in 
Flanders. 

Had  the  Allies  been  able  to  retain  Antwerp,  they  might  con- 
ceivably have  stretched  their  long  line  in  a  northeasterly  direc- 
tion from  Ypres  past  Ghent  to  the  stronghold  of  Antwerp  itself 
and  thereby  have  retained  the  whole  Belgian  coast  and  been 
in  a  strategically  favorable  position  from  which  to  launch  a 
huge  offensive  against  the  Germans.  The  sorry  loss  of  Antwerp 
was  due  in  part  to  mismanagement  on  the  part  of  the  British 
authorities  in  London,  and  in  greater  part  to  the  hard,  cold 
fact  that  the  Allies  were  not  prepared  either  in  men  or  in  equip- 
ment for  such  an  extension  of  their  battle-Une  as  the  retention 
of  Antwerp  would  involve.  As  it  was,  the  Germans  were  enabled 
not  only  to  occupy  Antwerp  but  also  to  appropriate  Ghent, 
Bruges,  and  the  coast  towns  of  Zeebrugge  and  Ostend. 

German  possession  of  coast  towns  would  menace  England 
by  providing  bases  for  submarines  and  perhaps  by  cutting  Eng- 
land's  communications   with   France.     For   these   reasons   the 


36  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Germans  desired  to  capture  the  French  towns  of  Dunkirk, 
Calais,  and  Boulogne,  as  well  as  the  Belgian  ports  of  Zeebrugge 
and  Ostend.  Consequently,  as  soon  as  they  had  taken  Ant- 
werp, they  massed  three  armies  under  the  duke  of  Wilrttemberg, 
the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince,  and  General  von  Biilow,  respec- 
tively, for  a  drive  towards  the  Straits  of  Dover.  In  the  last 
week  of  October,  almost  simultaneously,  these  armies  furiously 
assailed  the  Allied  line  along  the  Yser,  at  Ypres,  at  La  Bassee, 
and  before  Arras.  The  terrific  battle  of  Flanders  was  on.  At 
first  the  brunt  of  the  conflict  was  borne  by  the  battered  Bel- 
gian army,  which  held  Duke  Albert  of  Wilrttemberg  back  of 
the  Yser  until  British  warships  could  draw  into  range  and  open 
fire  with  their  heavy  guns,  forcing  the  Germans  to  desist.  Further 
inland,  between  Nieuport  and  Ypres,  the  German  advance  was 
checked,  after  other  means  had  failed,  by  the  desperate  expedient 
of  cutting  the  dikes  and  flooding  the  country.  The  town  of 
Dixmude,  in  this  region,  was  finally  won  by  the  Germans. 
Further  south,  the  Bavarian  Crown  Prince  managed  after  five 
days'  intense  fighting  to  advance  the  few  miles  from  La  Bassee 
to  Neuve  Chapelle,  but  no  nearer  the  coast  could  he  go.  Still 
further  south  General  von  Biilow  drove  hard  against  Arras, 
but  the  French,  under  General  Maud'huy,  held  their  ground 
most  tenaciously.  Near  Ypres,  however,  the  Germans  delivered 
their  most  savage  and  protracted  assaults.  The  brave  British 
army,  reenforced  by  colonials  and  French  troops,  was  beaten 
back  a  little,  but  its  line  was  not  broken.  The  Germans'  effort 
to  reach  the  Channel  ports  was  as  much  a  failure  in  October 
and  November  as  had  been  their  attempt  to  smash  the  whole 
French  army  in  August  and  September. 

By  the  middle  of  November,  the  battle  of  Flanders,  like  the 
battle  of  the  Aisne,  had  lost  its  fury  and  become  a  dreary  process 
of  trench-digging  with  intermittent  cannonading.  Here  and 
there  a  few  hundred  yards  could  be  gained  by  one  side  or  the 
other  by  hurling  masses  of  infantry  at  the  opposing  trenches, 
but  for  such  sacrifice  the  strategic  gain  was  small.  The  rigors 
of  winter,  moreover,  now  added  to  the  sufferings  of  the  soldiers, 
who  had  to  settle  down  in  trenches  filled  with  mud  and  water 
if  not  with  ice  and  snow. 

The  battle-line  established  after  the  struggles  on  the  Aisne 
and  in  Flanders  extended  some  six  hundred  miles  from  the  coast 
of  the  Channel  to  the  border  of  Switzerland;  of  this  long  line 
the  Belgians  at  the  close  of  1914  held  about  eighteen  miles  and 
the  British  about  thirty-one,  while  the  French  armies,  two  and 


GERMANY  CONQUERS  BELGIUM 


37 


a  half  millions  strong,  defended  the  remaining  543  miles.     By 
this  time  the  Hne  had  become  almost  stationary,  and  was  so 


Allies'  Western  Front,  December,  1914 

formidably  intrenched  and  fortified  that  it  could  not  possibly 
be  broken  except  at  a  terrible  cost  of  life  and  with  an  enormous 
expenditure  of  shells. 


GERMAN  GAINS  IN  THE  WEST  —  AND   FAILURE 

What  had  the  Germans  gained  by  their  attack  upon  Belgium 
and  France  ?  In  the  first  place,  they  were  in  military  occupation 
of  the  whole  kingdom  of  Belgium  except  a  tiny  strip  in  the  south- 
west corner  extending  from  Nieuport  to  Ypres.  The  Belgian 
government  was  exiled  to  Havre  in  France,  and  the  Belgian  people 
were  ruled  by  a  German  military  governor  at  Brussels.  To  the 
already  great  industrial  resources  of  Germany  were  now  added 
those  of  Belgium,  and  by  forced  levies  the  conquerors  obtained 
goods  and  money  from  the  vanquished  as  aids  to  the  prosecution 
of  the  war.  The  invasion  of  Belgium,  however,  had  contributed 
directly  to  bringing  Great  Britain  into  the  war,  and  the  horrors 
amid  which  the  conquest  of  Belgium  was  consummated  aroused 
the  livehest  enmity  of  the  whole  Belgian  people  and  the  keenest 
sympathy  of  neutral  nations  as  well  as  of  the  Allies.  The  Ger- 
mans had  won  Belgian  territory  but  no  Belgian  hearts. 

A  large  part  of  the  city  of  Louvain,  including  the  famous 


38  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Catholic  university  and  church  of  St.  Peter,  was  dehberately 
razed  by  the  Germans,  because,  said  the  German  official  report, 
the  civiHan  population  had  concerted  an  attack  on  the  German 
troops  which  occupied  the  town.  The  vandahsm  at  Lou  vain 
especially  shocked  the  consciences  of  civilized  men,  but  it  was 
only  one  of  numerous  similar  instances  where  towns  or  villages 
had  been  ruthlessly  burned  and  many  of  their  inhabitants  shot 
or  outraged.  The  spirit  which  prompted  these  acts  may  be 
judged  by  an  extract  from  the  proclamation  of  General  von 
Billow  to  the  citizens  of  Liege  :  "The  inhabitants  of  the  town  of 
Ardennes,  after  having  declared  their  peaceful  intentions,  have 
made  a  surprise  attack  on  our  troops.  It  is  with  my  approval 
that  the  commander  has  ordered  the  whole  town  to  be  burned 
and  that  about  a  hundred  persons  have  been  shot.  I  bring 
this  to  the  knowledge  of  the  city  of  Liege  so  that  its  citizens  may 
realize  the  fate  with  which  they  are  menaced  if  they  adopt  a 
similar  attitude."  In  the  town  of  Wavre,  the  German  general 
demanded  a  war  levy  of  three  million  francs  as  a  fine  for  the 
resistance  offered  by  the  inhabitants,  and  threatened:  "The 
town  will  be  burned  and  utterly  destroyed  if  the  levy  is  not  paid 
in  due  time,  without  regard  for  anyone ;  the  innocent  will  suffer 
with  the  guilty."  This  was  precisely  the  most  distressing  cir- 
cumstance, that  the  innocent  were  made  to  suffer  with  the 
guilty.  Evidence  collected  on  oath  by  French  and  British  com- 
missions of  inquiry  tended  to  show  that  in  countless  cases  the 
worst  horrors  of  war  had  been  inflicted  on  innocent  women  and 
children.  For  instance,  at  Sommeilles,  which  was  burned  by 
the  Germans  on  September  6,  two  women,  and  four  children 
aged  respectively  eleven,  five,  four,  and  one,  were  afterwards 
discovered  lying  in  a  pool  of  blood  in  a  cellar  where  they  had 
been  cruelly  butchered.  For  such  heinous  crimes,  for  such 
violation  of  international  law  and  common  decency,  the  Ger- 
mans offered  the  curious  pleas  of  "military  necessity"  and  "war 
is  war." 

Against  German  perfidy  and  German  "  f rightfulness, "  the 
Belgians  found  a  courageous  and  able  advocate  in  Cardinal 
Mercier,  archbishop  of  Malines  and  primate  of  the  CathoKc 
Church  in  Belgium.  He  was  indefatigable  in  protesting  against 
the  German  conquest,  in  comforting  his  compatriots,  and  in 
appealing  to  the  Vatican  and  foreign  Powers  for  aid.  In  vain 
the  German  administration  sought  to  silence  him  or  to  nullify 
his  efforts.  In  a  famous  pastoral  letter  addressed  to  his  priests 
on  Christmas  Day,  1914,  the  venerable  prelate  wrote:   "I  have 


GERMANY  CONQUERS  BELGIUM  39 

traversed  the  greater  part  of  the  districts  most  terribly  devastated 
in  my  diocese,  and  the  ruins  I  beheld,  and  the  ashes,  were  more 
dreadful  than  I,  prepared  by  the  saddest  forebodings,  could 
have  imagined.  .  .  .  Churches,  schools,  asylums,  hospitals, 
convents,  in  great  numbers,  are  in  ruins.  Entire  villages  have 
all  but  disappeared.  .  .  .  God  will  save  Belgium,  my  brethren, 
ye  cannot  doubt  it.  Nay  rather.  He  is  saving  her.  ...  Is 
there  a  patriot  among  us  who  does  not  know  that  Belgium  has 
grown  great?  Which  of  us  would  have  the  courage  to  tear  out 
this  last  page  of  our  national  history?  Which  of  us  does  not 
exult  in  the  brightness  of  the  glory  of  this  shattered  nation?" 

To  the  eloquent  words  of  Cardinal  Mercier  should  be  added 
the  work  of  the  special  commission  dispatched  by  the  Belgian 
government  from  Havre  to  the  United  States  and  the  active 
Belgian  propaganda  carried  on  in  England.  The  wrongs  done 
Belgium  were  ceaselessly  reviewed.  One  noteworthy  result 
was  the  organization  of  relief,  chiefly  under  American  auspices ; 
for  two  years  and  a  half,  Mr.  Brand  Whitlock,  the  United  States 
minister  at  Brussels,  cooperated  with  various  Belgian  and  foreign 
societies,  in  attempting  to  lessen  the  misery  and  suffering  of 
millions  of  men  and  women  in  Belgium.  Another  result  was 
the  increasing  fervor  of  the  British  in  prosecuting  the  war. 
The  ^' assassination  of  Belgium"  became  one  of  the  most  effective 
aids  to  Lord  Kitchener  in  Securing  volunteers  for  his  armies. 
The  British  Expeditionary  Force,  which  in  August,  1914, 
amounted  to  but  150,000,  was  thenceforth  steadily  augmented 
until  by  April,  191 5,  it  numbered  at  least  750,000,  to  say  nothing 
of  colonial  troops  that  were  arriving  from  Canada,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  and  even  India. 

What  had  the  Germans  gained?  In  the  first  place,  they  had 
gained  Belgium  —  but  also  the  hatred  of  the  Belgian  people, 
the  ever  greater  and  more  determined  hostility  of  the  British 
at  home  and  overseas,  and  the  suspicion  and  horror  of  nearly 
the  whole  world.  Incidentally,  they  had  opened  up  a  more 
strategically  suitable  route  for  their  major  attack  upon  France. 
In  the  second  place,  they  had  invaded  France  and  possessed 
themselves  of  a  fairly  large  strip  of  northern  French  territory, 
including  the  populous  towns  of  Lille,  St.  Quentin,  Douai,  Valen- 
ciennes, Maubeuge,  Sedan,  Montmedy,  Vervins,  and  Laon. 
Though  the  occupied  territory  constituted  only  about  one-twen- 
tieth of  the  total  area  of  European  France,  it  was  a  fraction  which, 
because  of  its  industrial  and  mining  wealth,  was  of  great  impor- 
tance for  the  successful  conduct  of  the  war.     It  included  ninety 


40  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

per  cent,  of  France's  iron  ore,  eighty  per  cent,  of  her  iron  and 
steel  manufactures,  and  seventy  per  cent,  of  her  coal  resources. 
Despite  this  serious  handicap,  however,  France  was  not  crushed. 
Her  armies  were  intact.  Her  government  had  returned  from 
Bordeaux  to  Paris  in  December,  1914.  Her  national  spirit 
was  quickened.  Her  confidence  in  ultimate  victory  was  superb. 
The  strategy  of  the  German  General  Staff  on  the  Western  Front 
had  failed.     The  Germans  had  not  attained  their  objectives. 

The  invasion  of  France  in  the  late  summer  of  19 14  had  exposed 
a  momentous  fallacy.  The  beUef  that  before  the  terrific  on- 
slaught of  the  German  armies,  with  their  swift  mobihzation, 
their  unrivaled  discipline,  and  their  ponderous  howitzers,  the 
French  people  would  prove  themselves  cowardly,  decadent,  and 
excitable,  and  the  armed  resistance  of  France  would  wither  and 
crumple  up,  was  definitely  relegated  to  the  realm  of  fancy  by 
the  absolutely  calm  and  heroic  conduct  of  the  French  during  the 
crisis  and  by  the  battle  of  the  Marne.  The  magnificent  holding 
battle  fought  by  the  French  along  the  line  from  Paris  to  Verdun, 
after  a  long  and  discouraging  retreat,  effectually  dispelled  the 
illusion  that  the  swift  Prussian  victory  over  France  in  1870 
could  be  repeated  in  19 14.  That  the  omens  had  fickly  changed 
was  evidenced  in  the  autumn  of  19 14  by  the  supersession  of 
Helmuth  von  Moltke  as  Chief  of  the  German  General  Staff  by 
Erich  von  Falkenhayn,  the  Prussian  minister  of  war. 

The  German  General  Staff  had  planned  to  overcome  France 
quickly  and  then  turn  its  whole  force  against  Russia.  Unable 
to  overcome  France,  what  would  it  do  with  Russia  ? 


20       Longitude        East    22"   rrom        Greenwiob    24^ 


CHAPTER   III 

RUSSIA   FAILS   TO    OVERWHELM    GERMANY 

THE  RUSSIAN  INVASION  OF  EAST  PRUSSIA 

One  significant  effect  of  the  German  failure  speedily  to  crush 
France  was  the  inability  of  the  German  General  Staff  to  transfer 
its  main  forces  from  the  west  to  the  east  before  the  first  Russian 
armies  had  been  mobilized.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  mobiliza- 
tion of  the  Russian  *' hordes"  proceeded  practically  unhindered 
and  with  unexpected  rapidity.  By  the  third  week  of  August, 
some  two  million  Russian  soldiers  were  under  arms;  and  of 
the  twenty-six  Russian  army  corps  then  available,  eight  were 
assigned  to  deal  with  the  five  left  in  the  east  by  Germany,  and 
eighteen  were  massed  against  the  Austrians'  twelve. 

As  the  gigantic  battles  in  northern  France  assumed  more  and 
more  the  character  of  a  deadlock  between  intrenched  troops,  the 
Allies  looked  to  Russia  to  invade  Germany  with  her  vast  armies 
and  compel  Germany  to  turn  attention  to  the  east.  It  was 
generally  assumed  that  the  Russians  would  sweep  like  a  tidal 
wave  toward  Berlin,  while  the  weakened  German  battle-line 
in  the  west  would  be  beaten  back  out  of  France  and  Belgium. 
But  month  after  month  dragged  by,  and  although  the  fighting 
forces  surged  back  and  forth  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  Germany 
there  was  little  sign  of  the  ''tidal  wave." 

In  order  to  understand  the  failure  of  the  Russians  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  war  to  overwhelm  Germany  in  the  east,  one  must 
realize  that  Russia  had  to  battle  not  only  against  the  well- 
trained  and  perfectly  equipped  soldiers  of  Germany,  and  the 
somewhat  less  efficient  soldiers  of  Austria-Hungary,  but  also 
against  geography.  European  Russia,  it  should  be  observed, 
formed  a  huge  wedge,  with  Russian  Poland  as  the  rather  blunt 
point  of  the  wedge,  thrust  in  between  German  East  Prussia  on 
the  north  and  Austrian  Galicia  on  the  south.  The  point  of  the 
wedge  was  less  than  two  hundred  miles  from  Berlin,  but  before 
the  wedge  could  be  driven  into  Germany,  the  Germans  would 
have  to  be  crowded  out  of  East  Prussia  and  the  Austrians  out 

41 


42  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  Galicia.  In  other  words,  no  army  would  be  safe  in  proceeding 
from  Russian  Poland  against  Berlin  so  long  as  the  Germans  from 
the  north  and  the  Austrians  from  the  south  could  close  in  and 
cut  off  the  communications  of  that  army  with  its  sources  of  supply 
in  Russia.  For  this  reason  the  Russian  generalissimo,  the  Grand 
Duke  Nicholas,  instead  of  marching  his  chief  armies  straight 
westward  from  Warsaw  to  Berlin,  deflected  them  to  the  north 
and  to  the  south. 

To  the  north  lay  East  Prussia,  and  hither  the  Russians  pene- 
trated about  the  middle  of  August.  In  invading  East  Prussia, 
the  Russians  would  have  to  overcome  three  serious  obstacles. 
First  there  was  a  chain  of  almost  impassable  lakes,  marshes, 
and  rivers,  stretching  from  Johannisberg  to  Insterburg.  Be- 
hind this  lake  barrier  lay  the  fortified  camp  of  Konigsberg  with 
one  German  army  corps,  in  the  north,  and  Aliens tein,  with  an- 
other army  corps,  in  the  south.  Still  further  west  was  the  strong 
line  of  the  Vistula  river,  defended  by  Danzig,  Marienburg, 
Graudenz,  and  Thorn.  The  main  bodies  of  Russian  invaders 
avoided  the  lake  country  near  the  eastern  frontier  of  East 
Prussia.  One  Russian  army,  under  General  Rennenkampf, 
proceeded  directly  westward  from  Kovno,  defeated  the  Germans 
at  Gumbinnen  on  August  17-20,  pressed  on  to  Insterburg,  and 
drove  the  Konigsberg  army  corps  to  the  shelter  of  its  fortifica- 
tions. Simultaneously  another  and  larger  Russian  army  in- 
vaded East  Prussia  from  the  south,  between  the  lake  barrier 
on  the  east  and  the  Vistula  on  the  west,  and  with  dash  and  vigor 
took  Aliens  tein  and  pressed  back  a  second  German  army  corps. 

But  suddenly,  as  they  turned  westward,  the  Russians  dis- 
covered on  their  flank  three  fresh  German  army  corps  which 
had  hastily  been  brought  up  by  rail  and  detrained  near  Allen- 
stein.  In  the  battle  that  then  took  place,  August  26-31,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Tannenburg  and  the  Masurian  lakes,  the 
Russian  army  was  enveloped  and  completely  routed.  At  the 
end  of  the  contest,  the  German  commander,  General  von  Hinden- 
burg,  could  report  the  capture  of  90,000  Russians,  including  two 
generals,  besides  the  equipment  and  supplies  of  three  whole 
army  corps.  The  news  reached  Berlin  in  time  to  transform  the 
anniversary  of  Sedan  (September  i)  into  a  triumphal  celebration 
of  Hindenburg's  great  victory.  The  German  general  followed 
up  his  success  by  driving  the  Russians  out  of  East  Prussia.  The 
Russian  invasion  of  East  Prussia  had  definitely  failed.  Hinden- 
burg  was  the  *'man  of  the  hour";  he  was  to  all  the  German 
people  both  savior  and  hero ;    and  the  Kaiser  promptly  raised 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         43 

him  to  the  rank  of  Field  Marshal  and  made  him  generalissimo 
of  the  armies  in  the  East. 

On  September  15,  Hindenburg  passed  the  East  Prussian  border 
on  a  wide  front  and  carried  the  war  into  the  Russian  district 
of  Suwalki.  Rennenkampf  retired  before  him,  fighting  rear- 
guard actions,  until  the  Niemen  river  was  reached.  Here  the 
Russian  commander,  reenforced  from  Kovno  and  Vilna,  turned 
at  bay.  In  vain  did  the  Germans  struggle  to  efifect  a  crossing 
of  the  Niemen.  Unable  to  make  further  headway,  Hindenburg 
late  in  September  ordered  a  retreat  to  the  East  Prussian  frontier. 
This  time  it  was  the  Russian  army  which  followed  and  harassed 
a  retiring  foe.  In  the  vicinity  of  Augustovo  Rennenkampf  in- 
flicted a  serious  defeat  upon  Hindenburg  early  in  October ;  and 
the  Germans  found  no  rest  or  safety  until  they  were  again  on 
their  own  soil.  If  the  Russians  had  failed  to  conquer  East 
Prussia,  so  too  had  the  Germans  failed  to  invade  Russia  from 
East  Prussia. 

It  had  been  proved  alike  to  the  Russians  and  to  the  Germans 
that  East  Prussia  was  an  isolated  area  splendidly  fitted  by 
nature  for  defense  but  poorly  adapted  as  a  base  for  offense. 
Between  Russian  Poland  and  Austrian  GaKcia,  however,  there 
were  no  such  natural  barriers.  Galicia  was  not  an  isolated  area, 
nor  was  it  defended  by  a  Hindenburg  or  by  perfectly  disciplined 
German  troops.  To  Galicia,  therefore,  the  Russians  directed 
their  major  attention. 

THE   RUSSIAN  INVASION  OF   GALICIA 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  it  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
the  Austrians  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  struggle  with  Russia,  while 
the  Germans  were  conquering  Belgium  and  France.  It  was  a 
hard  lot,  for  Austria-Hungary  as  a  military  Power  was  far  less 
efficient  than  Germany ;  she  was  a  hodge-podge  of  quarrelsome 
nationalities;  and  now  she  had  to  wage  war  on  the  Bosnian 
front  against  Serbia  and  Montenegro  and  keep  a  reserve  force 
at  Trieste  and  in  the  Trentino  against  the  possible  intervention 
of  Italy  as  well  as  to  defend  Galicia.  Galicia  belonged  naturally 
and  geographically  to  Russia  and  Poland,  for  from  Austria 
proper  and  from  Hungary  it  was  separated  by  the  range  of  the 
Carpathians.  To  be  sure,  an  invading  army  would  have  to 
cross  numerous  rivers  with  which  Galicia  was  provided,  and 
would  have  to  encounter  very  strong  fortifications  which  Austria 
had  erected  at  Lemberg,   at  Jaroslav  and  Przemysl,   and  at 


44  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Cracow.  But  after  all,  the  best  means  of  defending  Galicia 
would  probably  be  an  attack  upon  Russian  Poland  before  the 
Russians  were  fully  mobilized. 

Accordingly,  two  Austro-Hungarian  armies,  numbering  300,000 
men  each,  were  collected  in  Galicia  early  in  August,  19 14.  The 
one,  commanded  by  General  Dankl,  was  based  on  the  fortresses 
of  Przemysl  and  Jaroslav  and  was  destined  for  an  invasion  of 
Russian  Poland  on  a  front  east  and  west  from  Tomasov  to  the 
Vistula.  The  other,  under  General  von  Auffenburg,  was  based 
on  Lemberg  and  extended  north  and  south  from  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Bug  to  the  town  of  Halicz,  at  right  angles  with 
General  Dankl's.  On  August  10  General  Dankl  crossed  the 
frontier,  captured  Krasnik,  won  successes  near  Lublin,  and 
pressed  the  Russians  under  General  Ivanov  back  over  the  Bug 
river. 

The  Russians  had  not  planned  to  attack  Galicia  from  the 
north.  Their  mobilization  was  proceeding  more  to  the  east, 
especially  at  Lutsk,  Dubno,  and  Kiev.  Their  real  plans  were 
gradually  disclosed  when  they  at  once  retired  before  Dankl 
and  assailed  Auffenburg  in  full  force.  On  August  14,  General 
Ruzsky,  with  a  large  Russian  army,  based  on  Lutsk  and  Dubno, 
moved  over  the  northeastern  boundary  of  GaHcia,  captured 
Sokal,  and  in  six  days  marched  to  within  thirty  miles  of  Lem- 
berg. Simultaneously  another  large  Russian  army,  under 
General  Brussilov,  had  come  westwards  from  Kiev  and  was 
advancing  against  Auffenburg' s  right  flank  by  way  of  Tarnapol 
and  the  valley  of  the  Sereth.  Brussilov  took  Tarnapol  on 
August  27,  then  Halicz,  and  then  wheeled  north  against  Lemberg. 

On  September  1-2,  the  critical  battle  of  Lemberg  was  fought. 
While  Brussilov  fiercely  attacked  the  Austrian  right  and  carried 
the  hne  of  the  Gnila  Lipa,  Ruzsky  swept  to  the  north  of  the  city, 
drove  in  the  Austrian  left,  and  threatened  Auffenburg's  com- 
munications. Austrian  generalship  proved  defective,  and  some 
of  the  Slav  contingents  in  the  Austrian  army  abandoned  their 
posts  and  threw  down  their  arms  at  the  first  favorable  oppor- 
tunity. The  Russians  took  at  least  100,000  prisoners,  and  on 
September  3  entered  Lemberg  in  triumph,  giving  the  city  the 
genuinely  Slavic  name  of  Lvov. 

After  the  battle  of  Lemberg,  Brussilov  sent  a  detachment  of 
his  army  to  occupy  Czernowitz,  the  capital  of  Bukowina,  and 
to  seize  the  passes  through  the  Carpathians,  and  with  his  main 
force,  in  company  with  Ruzsky,  advanced  toward  Przemysl 
on  a  front  from  Stryj  to  Rawaruska.     The  Russian  advance  in 


RUSSIA  FAILS   TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         45 

Galicia  seriously  menaced  General  Dankl's  operations  in  Russian 
Poland.  Two  German  army  corps  were  dispatched  to  the  aid 
of  Auffenburg;  Austrian  reenforcements  were  hastily  brought 
up;  and  a  new  Austrian  army,  under  the  Archduke  Joseph 
Ferdinand,  was  put  in  the  field,  from  the  Vistula  to  LubUn. 
Thus,  early  in  September,  the  three  Austrian  armies  were  drawn 
up  in  the  form  of  a  quarter  arc  extending  from  the  Vistula,  past 
Lublin,  Rawaruska,  and  Grodek,  to  the  Dniester. 

On  this  extended  front  a  great  battle  was  fought,  September 
6-10.  The  Archduke  Joseph  was  decisively  beaten  and  driven 
in  ignominious  retreat  southward  toward  the  San.  Dankl 
fought  well,  but  failed  to  maintain  his  position.  Auffenburg 
was  worse  battered  than  before.  This  time  there  was  a  rout 
along  the  entire  Austrian  front.  This  time  there  was  a  head- 
long flight  to  Jaroslav  and  Przemysl,  and  the  vanguard  of  the 
vanquished  halted  only  under  the  protecting  guns  of  far-away 
Cracow.  The  synchronizing  of  this  great  Russian  victory  with 
the  battle  of  the  Marne  on  the  Western  Front  gave  new  courage 
and  delight  to  the  Allies :  Austrians  could  be  overcome  by 
Russians  as  decisively  as  Germans  could  be  defeated  by  French 
and  British.     Teutonic  ''invincibility"  was  a  myth. 

Onward  in  Galicia  pressed  the  Russians.  On  September  23, 
they  captured  Jaroslav  and  invested  the  fortress  of  Przemysl. 
By  the  end  of  September  they  reached  Tarnow,  less  than  a 
hundred  miles  from  Cracow.  Nearly  all  of  Galicia  was  in  their 
possession,  and  could  they  but  seize  Cracow  they  would  have 
in  their  grasp  the  most  important  base  for  either  an  advance 
through  Silesia  toward  Berlin  or  a  direct  thrust  at  Vienna.  Occu- 
pation of  Cracow  would  afford  them  a  means  of  turning  the 
flank  of  the  strong  German  positions  in  East  Prussia  and  Posen 
and  of  seriously  interfering  with  the  economic  resources  of  the 
Teutonic  Powers. 

But  the  Russians  were  too  optimistic.  Early  in  October, 
Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg  was  put  in  command  of  all  the 
German  and  Austro-Hungarian  forces  in  the  East.  Leaving  a 
small  army  in  East  Prussia,  he  immediately  set  to  work  to  pre- 
pare a  counter-offensive  against  the  Russians  in  Poland.  Now 
that  the  contest  on  the  Western  Front  had  assumed  the  character 
of  trench  warfare,  fewer  men  were  needed  there  to  defend  the 
trenches  than  had  been  required  to  conduct  field  operations. 
Consequently  several  army  corps  were  transferred  to  the  East, 
and  with  these  and  with  army  corps  and  reservists  already  in 
Silesia  and  Posen,   Hindenburg  massed  an  army  of  at  least 


46  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

750,000  Germans  between  the  fortress  of  Thorn  and  the  town  of 
LubHnitz  in  southern  Silesia.  At  the  same  time  he  superin- 
tended the  organization,  near  Cracow,  of  two  Austrian  armies, 
which,  bolstered  up  with  several  German  officers  and  including 
a  hberal  interspersing  of  German  soldiers,  aggregated  close  to  one 
million. 

In  the  second  week  of  October,  Hindenburg  struck  out  all 
along  his  extended  line.  The  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  the  Russian 
generalissimo,  at  once  perceiving  the  danger  to  his  armies  operat- 
ing in  western  Galicia,  ordered  a  general  withdrawal  to  Warsaw, 
the  Vistula,  and  the  San.  By  the  middle  of  October,  Hinden- 
burg's  left  wing  was  at  Plock  on  the  lower  Vistula ;  his  center 
was  east  of  Lowicz  and  nearing  Warsaw ;  his  left  was  between 
Radom  and  Ostrowiecs ;  while  Dankl  with  one  Austrian  army 
was  at  the  junction  of  the  San  and  Vistula,  and  the  other  Austrian 
army  was  recapturing  Jaroslav  and  raising  the  siege  of  Przemysl. 

A  fight  for  Warsaw  raged  on  October  16-19.  The  German 
left  flank  was  turned  by  a  Russian  reserve  army  unexpectedly 
brought  up  from  Novo  Georgievsk  by  General  Rennenkampf, 
and  Hindenburg's  left  and  center  were  compelled  to  retire.  But 
the  most  determined  fighting  took  place  on  his  right  as  the  result 
of  a  desperate  attempt  of  the  Germans  to  cross  the  Vistula  at 
Ivangorod  and  at  the  narrows  near  Josefov.  The  Russians 
under  General  Ruzsky  successfully  held  Ivangorod  and  allowed 
only  such  divisions  to  cross  at  Josefov  as  could  be  captured  or 
annihilated  in  the  roadless  country  behind  the  town.  On 
October  22,  the  German  right  wing  was  compelled  to  retire  from 
the  Vistula;  on  November  3,  Ruzsky  drove  it  from  Kielce. 
Hindenburg's  first  great  offensive  against  Warsaw  had  failed. 
He  withdrew  his  forces  behind  the  Warthe  river  near  the  German 
frontier,  and  the  Austrians  were  again  back  on  Cracow.  Again 
the  Russians  occupied  Jaroslav  and  invested  Przemysl;  again 
they  advanced  upon  Cracow. 

The  Russians  were  determined  to  possess  themselves  of  all 
Galicia.  In  spite  of  renewed  counter-offensives  conducted  by 
the  Germans  in  Poland  and  by  the  Austrians  in  the  Carpathians, 
they  clung  doggedly  to  their  task  throughout  the  winter  of 
1914-1915.  On  December  8,  1914,  a  Russian  army  under 
Radko  Dmitriev,  formerly  chief  of  staff  of  the  Bulgarian  army 
but  now  in  the  service  of  the  Tsar,  fought  an  indecisive  battle 
almost  at  the  outskirts  of  Cracow.  A  few  days  later  the  Aus- 
trians' capture  of  the  Dukla  Pass  in  the  Carpathians  obHged 
him  to  withdraw  from  the  vicinity  of  Cracow,  but  he  intrenched 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         47 

himself  near  Tarnow  and  held  this  position  throughout  the 
winter. 

Meanwhile  another  Russian  army  was  overrunning  Bukpwina, 
which  commanded  the  southeastern  end  of  the  Carpathian 
barrier.  On  January  6,  191 5,  it  captured  the  town  of  Kimpo- 
lung,  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  province,  and  on  Janu- 
ary 17,  it  gained  the  pass  of  Kirlibaba,  leading  westward  into 
Hungary,  and  threatened  Transylvania.  If  the  Russians  could 
successfully  occupy  both  Bukowina  and  Transylvania,  — 
provinces  peopled  mainly  by  Rumans,  —  Rumania  would  be 
likely  to  enter  the  war  and  cooperate  with  the  Russians,  turning 
the  eastern  flank  of  the  Carpathian  ridge,  while  the  Russians 
swarmed  over  the  central  Carpathian  passes. 

The  situation  called  for  strenuous  and  immediate  action  on 
the  part  of  Austria-Hungary.  The  supersession  of  Count 
Berchtold  as  foreign  minister  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  by  Baron 
Stephan  Burian,  a  friend  and  compatriot  of  Count  Tisza,  the 
Hungarian  premier,  on  January  13,  191 5,  was  interpreted  as  a 
sign  of  the  Emperor's  determination  to  protect  Magyar  interests 
at  all  costs.  While  Hindenburg  prepared  to  distract  the  at- 
tention of  the  Russians  by  new  attacks  in  Poland,  Archduke 
Eugene  of  Austria  marshaled  his  forces  in  three  great  armies 
for  a  supreme  effort  to  secure  the  Carpathian  ridge,  relieve  the 
hard-pressed  garrison  of  Przemysl,  free  Bukowina,  and  intimi- 
date Rumania. 

In  the  second  half  of  January  the  Austrian  counter-offensive 
was  launched.  The  first  Austrian  army,  under  General  Boehm- 
ErmolH,  moved  up  into  the  three  central  Carpathian  passes 
(Dukla,  Lupkow,  and  Uzsok)  with  the  object  of  advancing  north 
to  the  rehef  of  beleaguered  Przemysl.  The  second  army,  under 
the  command  of  the  German  General  von  Linsingen,  operated 
from  Munkacs  northward  in  the  passes  east  of  Uzsok.  The 
third  army,  comprising  both  German  and  Austro-Hungarian 
troops,  was  led  by  General  von  Pflanzer  against  the  Russians 
in  Bukowina.  General  von  Pflanzer  made  rapid  progress. 
KirHbaba  Pass  was  retaken;  the  weak  Russian  defense  of 
Czernowitz  succumbed  on  February  18 ;  and  the  Austro- Ger- 
mans turned  northward  into  Galicia,  passing  Kolomea,  and 
holding  the  important  railway  center  of  Stanislau  for  a  brief 
space,  until  they  were  forced  back  on  Kolomea,  March  3 .  General 
von  Linsingen,  however,  failed  dismally  in  his  attempt  to  ad- 
vance from  Munkacs  toward  Lemberg.  Even  more  disappoint- 
ing was  the  result  of  General  Boehm-ErmolH's  campaign  against 


48  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  central  passes :  after  two  months  of  bitter  battles  in  the 
snow-bound  mountain  defiles,  the  Russians  at  the  end  of  the 
third  week  in  March  held  the  Dukla  Pass  and  the  northern 
entrance  to  Lupkow. 

The  culminating  failure  of  the  Austrian  counter-offensive 
and  the  crowning  success  of  the  Russian  Galician  campaign 
was  the  surrender,  on  March  22,  of  the  Austrian  fortress  of 
Przemysl,  which  had  been  besieged  by  the  Russians  ever  since 
November  12.  The  situation  of  the  garrison  had  become  alarm- 
ing early  in  March.  After  provisions  were  well-nigh  exhausted 
and  a  breach  had  been  effected  by  the  Russians  in  the  outer 
ring  of  defenses.  General  von  Kusmanek  had  ordered  a  last 
desperate  sortie,  March  18.  This  failing  disastrously,  he  de- 
stroyed a  considerable  quantity  of  ammunition  and  then  sur- 
rendered the  city.  By  the  capture  of  Przemysl  the  Russians 
won  120,000  prisoners,  about  a  thousand  guns,  and  less  im- 
portant stores  of  small  arms.  More  significant  still,  the  rail- 
way leading  westward  from  Lemberg  through  Przemysl  to  Tarnow 
and  Cracow  was  at  last  cleared,  and  the  investing  army  of 
100,000  men  was  released  for  aggressive  operations  elsewhere. 
The  Russians  profited  by  their  improved  position  to  renew  the 
offensive  in  the  Carpathian  passes,  and  by  the  end  of  April  they 
were  in  possession  of  the  Carpathian  crest  for  seventy-five  miles, 
commanding  Dukla,  Lupkow,  and  Rostok  passes,  and  they  were 
fiercely  attacking  Uzsok  Pass. 

Thus,  from  August,  19 14,  to  April,  191 5,  the  Russians  struggled 
to  conquer  GaHcia.  They  had  met  with  some  setbacks,  but 
on  the  whole  their  gains  had  been  steadily  augmented  and 
solidified.  Their  generals  had  committed  few  mistakes  or 
blunders  and  the  rank  and  file  had  fought  courageously  and 
stubbornly.  They  were  in  complete  possession  of  all  eastern 
Galicia,  and  at  its  capital  city  of  Lemberg  (Lvov)  they  had 
installed  a  Russian  administration.  They  now  occupied  Jaro- 
slav  and  Przemysl;  they  controlled  most  of  the  Carpathian 
passes ;  they  threatened  Bukowina  and  Hungary  at  one  end  of 
their  Galician  conquest;  and  at  the  other  end  they  menaced 
Cracow  and  with  it  the  most  direct  routes  to  Berlin  and  Vienna. 

To  many  publicists  of  Western  Europe  it  seemed  high  time  that 
the  long-heralded  Russian  *' tidal  wave"  or  "steam  roller" 
should  sweep  out  of  the  comparatively  restricted  province  of 
Galicia  and  descend  with  magnificent  might  and  irresistible  force 
over  the  plains  of  Austria  and  Hungary,  on  one  side,  and  over 
the  rich  valley  of  the  Oder,  on  the  other.     It  had  been  for  this 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         49 

spectacular  denouement  that  French  and  British  and  Belgians 
had  been  pouring  out  their  blood  upon  the  Western  battlefields ; 
for  this  they  had  been  impatiently  waiting  in  their  trenches 
throughout  the  long,  dreary  winter-months.  It  was  now  spring, 
and  the  Russians  were  still  a  goodly  number  of  miles  away  from 
Cracow.  Until  Cracow  should  be  captured  and  Gahcia  en- 
tirely cleared  of  the  enemy,  the  Russian  commander-in-chief 
knew  it  would  be  suicidal  to  undertake  an  invasion  of  Germany. 

As  the  event  proved,  there  had  been  a  fallacy  in  the  reason- 
ing of  Western  publicists  concerning  the  Russian  '' masses'' 
and  ''hordes."  These  publicists  had  at  first  underestimated 
the  speed  and  efficiency  with  which  the  early  mobihzation  was 
effected.  Then,  knowing  that  Russia  comprised  a  population 
almost  three  times  as  large  as  that  of  the  German  Empire,  they 
had  proceeded  to  underestimate  the  difficulties  of  continued 
military  activity  on  the  part  of  Russia  and  therefore  to  over- 
estimate the  momentum  of  the  ''steam  roller." 

The  Russian  armies,  in  fact,  were  not  "steam  rollers"  and 
were  not  likely  to  be.  The  lines  of  communication  upon  which 
they  had  to  depend  were  wretchedly  inadequate.  Most  of  the 
soldiers  were  distressingly  ignorant  not  only  of  the  rudiments 
of  reading  and  writing  but  also  of  why  they  were  fighting.  The 
ofiicers  and  men  alike  were  woefully  dependent  upon  an  auto- 
cratic regime  at  Petrograd,  which  at  its  best  was  clumsy,  in- 
efficient, and  capricious,  and  which  at  its  worst  was  tyrannical, 
cruel,  and  corrupt.  Corruption  had  eaten  into  the  very  vitals 
of  the  military  administration,  as  well  as  of  the  civil  bureaucracy, 
and  in  the  critical  year  1914-1915  signs  were  plenty  that  large 
funds  which  should  have  bought  guns  and  rifles  and  ammunition 
and  airplanes  and  motor  cars  had  shamefully  disappeared  in 
the  pockets  of  grafting  officials  and  contractors.  A  war  that  was 
to  be  waged  by  weight  of  armor  and  projectiles  even  more  than 
by  weight  of  numbers  found  the  Russians  pecuHarly  short  of 
heavy  artillery.  To  be  sure,  the  lack  of  ammunition  and  other 
military  equipment  was  gradually  supplied,  at  least  in  con- 
siderable part,  by  importations  from  Japan  and  America,  but 
such  supplies  had  to  be  transported  over  the  long,  light  Siberian 
railway  (much  of  it  single  track) ;  and  imports  from  western 
Europe  could  enter  only  through  the  port  of  Archangel,  which 
was  blocked  by  ice  six  months  of  the  year.  Throughout  Russia 
the  few,  ill-equipped  railways  were  congested  with  foodstuffs 
and  army  suppHes  going  to  the  troops  in  Poland  and  Galicia. 
The  more  troops  there  were  at  the  front,  the  greater  was  the  con- 


50  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

gestion  on  the  railways;  the  greater  the  congestion,  the  more 
difficult  it  was  properly  to  take  care  of  the  troops  at  the  front 
or  to  bring  up  reenforcements  of  men.  In  other  words,  the 
preliminary  mobilization  in  August,  1914,  was  Russia's  best. 
For  Russia  it  was  physically  impossible  to  mobilize  all  her  fight- 
ing men  and  get  them  to  the  front  for  effective  service.  If 
Russia  could  not  overwhelm  Germany  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  war,  her  chances  of  doing  so  as  time  went  on  grew  less  rather 
than  greater.  Despite  what  was  said  at  the  time  in  western 
Europe,  it  is  probable  that  in  the  spring  of  191 5  the  combined 
forces  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  in  the  East  already 
outnumbered  the  effectives  of  Russia. 

In  view  of  these  facts  it  is  wonderful  that  the  Russian  armies 
achieved  what  they  did.  They  were  unable  successfully  to 
invade  Germany,  but  they  wrested  most  of  GaHcia  from  Austria- 
Hungary.  They  might  conceivably  have  gone  further,  taken 
Cracow,  and  entered  Silesia,  had  not  the  Germans  transferred 
large  forces  from  Flanders  and  France  to  Poland  and  Gahcia. 
This  gave  the  Allies  some  respite  in  the  West ;  and  it  compelled 
Germany  to  wage  the  war  simultaneously  on  two  fronts,  shifting 
her  troops  back  and  forth  as  occasion  required,  and  finding  her 
magnificent  strategic  railways  of  incalculable  value.  Skillful 
distribution  of  forces,  able  generalship,  and  superior  equip- 
ment enabled  the  Germans,  with  Austrian  assistance,  to  hold 
back  the  early  Russian  invasions  and  later  to  take  up  an  ad- 
vanced position  in  Russian  Poland. 

That  the  Russian  invasion  of  Galicia  was  finally  halted  early 
in  the  spring  of  191 5  and  that  it  never  reached  the  all-important 
city  of  Cracow,  is  to  be  explained  not  only  by  reference  to  cor- 
ruption and  inefficiency  in  the  Russian  government  but  also 
by  the  series  of  counter-offensives  which  Hindenburg  directed 
against  Russian  Poland  in  the  winter  of  1914-1915. 

THE   GERMAN  INVASION  OF  RUSSIAN  POLAND 

In  October,  19 14,  Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  undertaken  the  first  German  invasion  of  Russian 
Poland.  Though  he  had  failed  on  that  occasion  to  capture 
Warsaw  or  to  compel  the  permanent  withdrawal  of  Russian  forces 
from  western  Gahcia,  he  had  utilized  his  retreat  from  the  Vistula 
so  as  to  pave  the  way  for  a  second  invasion*  As  he  retired  to 
the  trenches  which  he  had  constructed  behind  the  Warthe, 
he  systematically  tore  up  the  railways  and  laid  waste  the  broad 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY  51 

belt  of  country  in  southwestern  Poland  between  the  Vistula 
and  the  Warthe,  so  that  the  Russians  who  followed  him  to  his 
trenches  were  without  adequate  means  of  communication  in 
their  rear.  Then,  Hindenburg,  leaving  a  small  force  to  man  the 
trenches  in  front  of  the  desolated  PoHsh  region,  commissioned 
General  von  Mackensen  to  collect  a  large  army  at  Thorn  and 
to  advance  with  it  up  the  Vistula  into  the  still  flourishing 
district  of  northwestern  Poland. 

Early  in  November,  Mackensen  collected  an  army  of  at  least 
800,000,  based  on  the  fortress  of  Thorn ;  and  the  second  German 
drive  against  Warsaw  began.  Aided  by  Mackensen  from  the 
northwest,  Hindenburg  struck  out  from  the  Warthe,  and  on 
November  23-24  pierced  the  hostile  Unes  near  Lodz  and  cap- 
tured some  90,000  Russians.  Reenforcements  came  up  and  the 
battle  continued  nearly  two  weeks,  but  at  length,  on  December  6, 
the  Russians  abandoned  Lodz  and  fell  back  to  within  thirty- 
five  miles  of  Warsaw.  Here,  another  great  battle  was  waged 
until  Christmas,  by  which  time  the  Russian  defenders  and  the 
German  assailants  were  facing  each  other  in  parallel  lines  of 
trenches  not  unlike  those  from  which  Germans  and  Allies  were 
viewing  each  other  on  the  Western  Front.  The  second  German 
invasion  of  Russian  Poland,  like  the  first,  had  failed  to  reach 
Warsaw;  unlike  the  first,  it  had  not  caused  the  Russians  even 
temporarily  to  withdraw  from  western  Galicia.  Yet  this  second 
invasion  secured  the  permanent  possession  of  western  Poland 
for  Germany  and  inaugurated  on  a  large  scale  in  the  East  the 
system  of  trench  warfare. 

At  the  beginning  of  191 5,  the  Russian  armies  were  strung  out 
in  a  battle-line  almost  nine  hundred  miles  long.  The  center  of 
the  Russian  line,  under  General  Ruzsky,  was  strongly  intrenched 
in  Russian  Poland,  behind  the  Rawka  and  Bzura  rivers,  and  in 
front  of  the  powerful  fortresses  of  Novo  Georgievsk,  Warsaw,  and 
Ivangorod.  The  right  of  the  Russian  Kne,  likewise  under 
Ruzsky's  general  command,  stretched  northeastwards  of  the 
Narew  river,  through  the  Masurian  lake  region  of  East  Prussia, 
to  the  Niemen  river.  The  left  of  the  Russian  army,  under 
General  Ivanov,  included  General  Ewarts's  army  on  the  Nida 
river,  west  of  Kielce;  General  Radko  Dmitriev's  army  in 
GaKcia,  holding  Tarnow;  General  Brussilov's  army,  holding 
the  northern  approaches  to  the  Carpathian  mountain  passes; 
and  General  Alexeiev's  army,  operating  in  Bukowina.  Opposing 
the  Russian  right  wing  were  four  German  army  corps  in  East 
Prussia;    the  Russian  center  was  confronted  by  strongly  in- 


k 


52  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

trenched  German  forces  under  General  von  Mackensen;  on 
the  left  wing  was  General  Dankl's  Austrian  army  west  of  the 
Nida  river ;  south  of  that  and  west  of  Tarnow,  General  Woyrsch's 
Austro- German  army;  and  the  extreme  Russian  left  flank  in 
the  Carpathians  was  harried  by  the  Austrian  Archduke  Eugene 
.from  the  south. 

Throughout  the  winter  of  1914-1915,  Hindenburg's  strategy 
was  to  direct  powerful  blows,  now  from  East  Prussia  against 
the  Russian  right,  now  from  Mackensen's  front  in  middle  Poland 
against  the  Russian  center,  in  the  hope  that  thereby  the  Russian 
right  or  the  Russian  center  would  be  so  weakened  as  to  admit 
of  a  deep  penetration  by  the  Germans.  In  this  fashion  Warsaw 
and  its  protecting  positions  might  either  be  taken  by  a  frontal 
attack  or  be  turned  by  a  flanking  movement  from  East  Prussia. 
In  December,  1914,  Mackensen  tried  a  gigantic  frontal  attack, 
and  failed.  During  the  first  week  of  February,  191 5,  he  at- 
tempted another  vast  frontal  attack:  under  cover  of  a  terrific 
bombardment,  and  in  the  face  of  a  blinding  snowstorm,  his 
troops  carried  three  lines  of  Russian  trenches  east  of  the  Rawka 
river,  only  to  be  met  by  the  fiercest  and  bravest  resistance  and 
ultimately  to  be  pushed  back  on  the  Rawka.  In  the  middle  of 
February,  Hindenburg  tried  a  huge  flanking  movement  from 
East  Prussia  :  in  the  north  a  German  army  annihilated  a  Russian 
corps  at  Suwalki,  won  a  foothold  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the 
Niemen  near  Grodno,  and  reached  a  point  only  ten  miles  from 
the  Petrograd-Warsaw  railway;  simultaneously,  another  Ger- 
man army  advanced  to  the  Bobr  river  and  began  a  bombardment 
of  Ossowietz,  while  a  third  swiftly  struck  at  Przasnysz,  sixty 
miles  north  of  Warsaw,  in  a  determined  effort  to  cross  the  Narew 
and  cut  the  lines  of  communication  with  the  Polish  capital. 
But  the  flanking  movement,  like  the  frontal  attacks,  failed.  By 
the  end  of  February,  the  assaults  on  the  Niemen,  on  the  Bobr, 
and  on  the  Narew  had  been  stopped,  and  the  Germans  were  in 
full  retreat  towards  the  East  Prussian  frontier.  In  March  and 
April  there  was  a  lull  —  the  lull  before  the  great  storm. 

By  April,  191 5,  the  Russians  were  in  possession  of  the  greater 
part  of  Austrian  Galicia,  but  the  Germans  Were  secure  in  East 
Prussia  and  were  in  occupation  of  one- third  of  Russian  Poland. 
The  Russians  still  held  Warsaw  and  the  main  strongholds  of 
Poland,  and  they  had  brilliantly  resisted  drive  after  drive  of 
Hindenburg  and  Mackensen.  As  time  went  on,  however,  it 
became  apparent  that  the  offensive  was  passing  more  and  more 
from  the  Russians  to  the  Germans.     It  was  believed  in  the  West 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         53 

that  time  was  on  the  side  of  the  Russians.  Events  were  soon 
to  demonstrate  that  time  was  on  the  side  of  the  Germans. 

In  reading  the  story  of  the  military  operations  in  the  Polish 
theater  of  war,  one  should  not  entirely  forget  the  tragic  plight 
of  the  Polish  nation.  The  once  glorious  kingdom  of  Poland, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  partitioned  toward  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  by  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Austria.  Con- 
sequently, although  the  Poles  constituted  a  homogeneous  nation 
of  twenty- three  milhons,  possessing  a  national  language  and 
literature  and  in  Roman  Catholicism  a  common  religion,  dwelling 
in  the  plains  of  Russian  Poland,  Prussian  Posen,  and  Austrian 
Galicia,  and  passionately  desiring  to  restore  their  political  unity 
and  freedom,  they  were  now  compelled  to  fight  in  opposing  armies 
and  to  furnish  the  battleground  for  Russia,  Germany,  and 
Austria-Hungary.  The  march  and  counter-march  of  milhons 
of  soldiers,  and  the  havoc  caused  by  hundreds  of  howitzers,  to 
say  nothing  of  systematic  destruction  wrought  by  German  orders, 
devastated  Poland  more  completely  than  Belgium.  Without 
food  or  homes  the  Polish  peasants  perished  miserably. 

Yet  for  the  future,  perhaps,  a  sHght  ray  of  hope  could  be  dis- 
cerned. Russia,  long  the  cruel  oppressor  of  the  largest  section 
of  Poland,  now  feared  a  Pohsh  revolt  and  promised  Poland 
autonomy  in  return  for  loyalty.  Early  in  August,  19 14,  the 
Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  generahssimo  of  the  Russian  forces,  issued 
the  following  eloquent  manifesto  to  the  Poles:  *'The  hour  has 
sounded  when  the  sacred  dream  of  your  fathers  and  your  grand- 
fathers may  be  realized.  A  century  and  a  half  has  passed  since 
the  living  body  of  Poland  was  torn  in  pieces,  but  the  soul  of  the 
country  is  not  dead.  It  continues  to  live,  inspired  by  the  hope 
that  there  will  come  for  the  Polish  people  an  hour  of  resurrection, 
and  of  fraternal  reconcihation  with  Great  Russia.  The  Russian 
army  brings  you  the  solemn  news  of  this  reconciliation  which 
obliterates  the  frontiers  dividing  the  Polish  peoples,  which  it 
unites  conjointly  under  the  scepter  of  the  Russian  Tsar.  Under 
this  scepter  Poland  will  be  born  again,  free  in  her  rehgipn  and 
her  language,  and  autonomous.  Russia  only  expects  from  you 
the  same  respect  for  the  rights  of  those  nationaHties  to  which 
history  has  bound  you.  With  open  heart  and  brotherly  hand 
Great  Russia  advances  to  meet  you.  She  beheves  that  the 
sword,  with  which  she  struck  down  her  enemies  at  Griinewald,^ 

^  The  battle  of  Griinewald,  or  Tannenberg  as  it  is  more  usually  called,  was  fought 
in  1410  between  the  Teutonic  Knights  of  Prussia,  on  one  side,  and  the  Poles  and 
Lithuanians  on  the  other.  It  was  a  decisive  victory  for  the  latter  and  marked  the 
emergence  of  Poland  as  a  Great  Power. 


54  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

is  not  yet  rusted.  From  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  to  the  North 
Sea  the  Russian  armies  are  marching.  The  dawn  of  a  new  life 
is  beginning  for  you,  and  in  this  glorious  dawn,  is  seen  the  sign 
of  the  cross,  the  symbol  of  suffering  and  of  the  resurrection  of 
peoples." 

Similar  appeals  to  the  Poles  were  made  by  Austria-Hungary, 
who  undoubtedly  had  accorded  the  Poles  within  her  borders 
far  better  treatment  than  was  received  by  the  unfortunate  Poles 
in  Russia  or  in  Prussia.  In  respect  of  Germany,  no  promise 
could  efface  from  Pohsh  memory  the  wrongs  suffered  under  the 
harsh  Prussian  administration,  which  had  pursued  a  deliberate 
policy  not  only  of  denying  the  Poles  the  use  of  their  mother- 
tongue  but  also  of  depriving  them  of  their  lands. 

Had  the  Russian  Tsar  given  immediate  effect  to  the  fair  words 
of  his  generaHssimo,  it  is  probable  that  the  Russian  Poles  would 
have  ralUed  enthusiastically  to  his  banner  and  that  serious  se- 
dition would  have  ensued  in  the  Polish  legions  of  the  Austro- 
German  armies.  So  long  as  the  Russians  remained  in  military 
occupation  of  Warsaw  and  GaHcia,  however,  ^'Polish  autonomy" 
remained  but  a  hope  and  a  promise,  until,  as  months  passed  by, 
it  seemed  to  an  increasing  number  of  Poles  to  be  but  a  mirage. 
The  less  enthusiastically  the  Russian  Poles  fought  for  the  Auto- 
crat of  All  the  Russias  and  the  less  frequently  their  kinsmen 
deserted  Teutonic  service,  the  more  quibbhng  became  the 
Russia,n  f)romises  even  of  ^'  autonomy."  The  longer  the  Russians, 
stilMn- possession  of  most  of  Poland,  delayed  to  make  real  con- 
cessions to  the  Poles,  the  more  expectantly  did  the  Poles  turn 
to  the  prospect  of  Austro-German  conquest.  They  certainly 
did  not  love  the  Germans ;  they  certainly  did  not  desire  an 
overwhelming  German  victory.  Yet  they  were  becoming  con- 
vinced that  they  had  nothing  —  perhaps  less  than  nothing  — 
to  gain  from  an  overwhelming  Russian  victory. 

Imperialistic  autocracy  in  Russia  was  storing  up  great  future 
tribulations  for  itself.  Its  inefficiency  and  corruption  were 
gradually  paralyzing  the  might  of  the  Russian  armies  in  the 
field.  Its  overweening  pride  and  arrogance  were  perceptibly 
weakening  the  loyalty  not  only  of  Poles  but  of  other  subject 
nationalities  within  the  Russian  Empire  —  Ukrainians,  Lithu- 
anians, and  Finns.  It  was  utilizing  the  temporary  heat  of 
national  altruism  and  patriotism  in  order  to  forge  enduring 
iron  Hnks  in  the  chain  of  social  inequality  and  poHtical  abso- 
lutism. Liberals  in  Russia  were  depressed,  and  revolutionaries 
desperate.     Well-wishers   of   Russia   and   of   the   Allied   cause 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         55 

throughout  the  world  should  have  been  alarmed  and  should 
have  made  energetic  representations  at  Petrograd  that  this  war 
was  a  war  in  behalf  of  small  nationaHties,  that  it  was  "a,  war  to 
end  war." 

Nothing  of  the  sort  happened.  On  the  contrary,  the  Russian 
conquest  of  GaHcia  and  the  stubborn  Russian  defense  of  Warsaw 
deceived  the  diplomatists  of  France  and  Great  Britain  as  to 
the  true  strength  of  their  Russian  ally.  On  the  Western  Front, 
the  Alhes  were  fully  holding  their  own,  and  on  the  Eastern  Front 
the  Russians  seemed  to  be  more  than  holding  their  own.  What 
merely  ''seemed,"  was  taken  as  proved  reality;  and  the  diplo- 
matists of  all  the  Allied  Powers,  instead  of  urging  moderation 
and  unselfishness  upon  the  Tsar's  government,  devoted  the  late 
winter  and  early  spring  of  19 15  to  making  secret  treaties  with 
one  another  whereby  some  of  the  worst  features  of  German  and 
Russian  imperialism  were  consecrated  as  guiding  principles  for 
the  peace  which,  in  their  optimistic  opinion,  was  about  to  follow 
a  speedy  Allied  victory.  Russia  not  only  was  to  annex  GaHcia 
and  Posen  and  exercise  her  own  sweet  will  over  all  Poland  but 
she  was  to  appropriate  Constantinople  and  realize  her  age-long 
imperialistic  dream  of  succeeding  to  the  destinies  of  Byzantium. 
France  not  only  was  to  regain  Alsace-Lorraine  but  she  was 
virtually  to  establish  a  protectorate  over  the  entire  left  bank  of 
the  Rhine.  Great  Britain  was  to  appropriate  Egypt  and  Meso- 
potamia and,  in  conjunction  with  France  and  Japan,  to  partition 
all  the  German  colonies.  It  was  the  supreme  blunder  of  the 
Allies.  It  was  a  blunder  that  eventually  was  to  constitute  the 
worst  indictment  of  professional  diplomatists. 

THE   SECURITY  OF  SERBIA 

It  will  be  recalled  that  in  July,  19 14,  Austria-Hungary  had 
set  out  to  "punish"  Serbia.  The  task  was  not  altogether  an 
easy  one.  The  little  Slav  state,  poor  and  small  as  it  might  ap- 
pear, could  boast  a  war  army  of  250,000  men,  mostly  seasoned 
veterans,  besides  a  territorial  reserve  of  50,000;  moreover, 
Serbia's  ally,  Montenegro,  could  put  in  the  field  about  50,000 
hardy  mountaineers,  renowned  for  their  valor.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  Serbs  were  deficient  in  heavy  artillery,  airplanes, 
and  sanitary  service,  they  enjoyed  the  immense  advantage  of 
recent  experience  in  war  and  the  courageous  confidence  imparted 
to  them  by  their  victories  of  1912-1913  over  Turks  and  Bulgars. 

Nevertheless,  short  shrift  would  undoubtedly  have  been  made 


$6  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

of  Serbia,  had  not  Austria-Hungary  been  much  engaged  during 
the  year  of  1914-1915  with  large  Russian  armies  in  GaHcia  and 
Poland.  With  such  forces  as  could  be  spared  from  the  Eastern 
theater  of  war,  the  Dual  Monarchy  undertook  to  preserve  its 
southern  lands  from  Serb  invasion  and  to  attempt  incursions 
into  Serbian  territory. 

About  the  middle  of  August,  Austrian  columns  were  thrown 
across  the  Drina  and  Save  rivers.  Obviously  the  intention  was 
to  invade  the  northwestern  corner  of  Serbia  simultaneously 
from  the  west  and  from  the  north,  and  to  converge  on  the  Serbian 
military  depot  at  Vahevo.  With  frantic  haste  the  Serbian 
Crown  Prince  brought  his  main  armies  by  forced  marches  west- 
ward to  meet  the  Austrian  invasion.  In  the  mountainous 
northwest  district  of  their  country,  between  the  Save  and  the 
Drina,  the  Serbians  fought  the  battles  of  Shabatz  and  the  Jadar, 
August  16-23,  to  prevent  the  junction  of  the  invading  columns. 
So  successful  were  the  Serbian  tactics  that  the  Austrians  were 
defeated  at  all  points  and  compelled  to  retreat  into  their  own 
territory.  In  repelKng  the  200,000  Austrians,  the  Serbians  had 
lost  3000  killed  and  15,000  wounded;  but  they  had  killed  some 
8000  of  the  enemy,  wounded  perhaps  30,000  and  captured 
4000 ;  they  had,  in  addition,  captured  much  needed  supplies  of 
rifles  and  ammunition. 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  Austria-Hungary  to  suffer  invasion. 
Early  in  September,  the  Serbians  took  Semhn,  across  the  river 
from  Belgrade,  while  another  Serbian  army  struck  into  southern 
Bosnia  in  the  direction  of  Serajevo.  These  forces  had  to  be 
speedily  withdrawn,  however,  for  Austria-Hungary  again  as- 
sumed the  offensive,  massing  250,000  men  against  the  same 
northwest  corner  of  Serbia. 

In  the  second  week  of  September  the  Austrians  advanced  a 
second  time  on  Vahevo.  Though  fierce  resistance  was  en- 
countered, and  though  another  Austrian  army  crossing  the 
Danube  east  of  Belgrade  was  routed  at  Semendria,  the  main 
Austrian  offensive  was  continued  and  Vahevo  was  taken  on 
November  15.  Belgrade,  which  had  been  besieged  and  inter- 
mittently bombarded  since  July  29,  capitulated  to  the  Austrians 
on  December  2. 

Just  when  Serbia's  complete  collapse  was  momentarily  ex- 
pected, news  came  that  the  Serbians  had  broken  through  the 
center  of  the  advancing  Austrian  army,  recaptured  Vahevo,  and 
inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  on  two  Austrian  corps,  capturing 
40,000  prisoners,  fifty  cannon,  and  munitions  in  immense  quantity. 


RUSSIA  FAILS  TO  OVERWHELM   GERMANY         57 

The  Austrian  right  wing  was  driven  back  in  disorder  across  the 
Drina,  where  it  was  still  further  punished  by  the  Montenegrins 
at  Vishegrad.  On  December  15,  the  Serbians  recaptured  Bel- 
grade, and  King  Peter  was  able  to  reenter  his  former  capital 
at  the  head  of  his  victorious  army,  while  all  Serbia  rejoiced  over 
the  announcement  that  not  a  single  Austrian  invader  remained 
on  Serbian  soil. 

After  the  exhausting  campaign  of  December,  19 14,  a  period 
of  inaction  ensued  in  the  Serbian  theater  of  war.  Serbs  and 
Austrians  alike  had  suffered  heavily  and  needed  time  to  repair 
their  losses.  Inclement  weather  and  impassable  roads  added 
to  the  disinclination  of  either  party  to  renew  active  operations. 
On  the  Austrian  side,  there  was  talk  of  undertaking  a  decisive 
offensive  in  February,  191 5,  but  this  time  the  ItaKan  government 
warned  Austria-Hungary  that  any  mihtary  action  undertaken 
in  the  Balkans  without  previous  agreement  regarding  the  com- 
pensation to  be  granted  Italy,  would  lead  to  grave  consequences. 
Relations  were  already  becoming  strained  between  Italy  and 
Austria-Hungary,  and  the  latter  was  not  inclined  to  draw  her 
ally  into  the  circle  of  her  enemies  just  for  the  sake  of  *' punish- 
ing" Serbia.  Meanwhile,  profiting  by  the  inactivity  of  Austria- 
Hungary  in  the  south,  Serbia  sought  as  best  she  could,  with  some 
foreign  aid,  to  repair  the  horrible  ravages  which  the  typhus,  in 
combination  with  the  past  year's  campaigns,  had  wrought  in 
her  army  and  among  her  civihan  population.    * 

With  the  exception  of  minor  frontier  engagements  and  rather 
desultory  bombardments  of  Belgrade,  the  Serbian  front  remained 
comparatively  quiet  until  October,  191 5.  Austria-Hungary  had 
as  yet  failed  to  *' punish"  Serbia,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Serbs  had  as  yet  been  unable  to  take  advantage  of  the  Dual 
Monarchy's  discomfiture  in  GaHcia  in  order  to  free  their  kins- 
folk of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and  of  Croatia-Slavonia  from  Habs- 
burg  rule.  Serbian  despair  and  Serbian  rejoicing  ahke  waited 
on  the  outcome  of  the  tremendous  battles  in  progress  between 
Russians  and  Austro- Germans  along  the  nine-hundred  mile 
line  from  the  Niemen  river  through  Russian  Poland  and  Galicia 
to  the  Carpathian  mountain  passes  and  Bukowina.  To  a  lesser 
degree  they  waited  on  the  outcome  of  a  contest  of  wit  which  at 
the  very  time  was  being  carried  on  between  Teutonic  and  Allied 
diplomatists  in  the  several  Balkan  capitals.  But  this  story 
belongs  to  a  later  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS 

IMPORTANCE  OF  SEA  POWER 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Great  War  it  was  confidently  beheved 
in  Allied  countries  that  France  and  Russia  would  be  able  to  hold 
in  equipoise  the  military  forces  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hun- 
gary, while  Great  Britain,  by  means  of  the  weight  of  her  enor- 
mous naval  superiority,  could  tip  the  balance  against  the  Teu- 
tonic Powers.  Little  was  expected  from  unmiHtary  Britain  in 
the  way  of  armed  intervention  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  but 
much  was  expected  from  her  naval  power  and  her  naval  prowess. 

The  Great  War  was  far  more  than  a  conflict  over  Serbia  and 
Alsace-Lorraine;  it  was  a  struggle  for  world  dominion.  And 
world  dominion  depended  quite  as  much  on  the  mastery  of  the 
seas  as  upon  a  conquest  of  Belgium  or  an  invasion  of  Galicia. 

From  the  time  she  entered  the  war  on  that  fateful  day  in 
August,  1 9 14,  Great  Britain  used  her  naval  superiority  both  for 
defense  and  for  offense.  Of  the  two,  defense  was  the  more  vitally 
necessary.  From  the  very  nature  of  things,  the  command  of  the 
seas  was  even  more  essential  to  Great  Britain's  preservation  than 
it  was  injurious  to  Germany's  welfare.  To  be  sure,  the  German 
merchant  marine  and  German  commerce  would  be  swept  from 
the  seas,  involving  thereby  the  partial  inability  of  Germany  to 
import  foodstuffs,  copper,  or  munitions  of  war,  or  to  market  the 
products  of  her  industry.  All  this  would  entail  direct  financial 
losses  of  alarming  size.  But  Germany  might  make  her  food  sup- 
ply last  by  strict  economy ;  she  had  large  stores  of  most  mate- 
rials requisite  for  war ;  and  the  effectiveness  of  her  army  did  not 
depend  absolutely  upon  control  of  the  sea.  To  Great  Britain,  how- 
ever, the  loss  of  the  seas  would  have  spelled  ruin.  Her  people 
would  have  been  starved,  her  industries  throttled,  and  her  army 
prevented  from  engaging  in  the  battles  of  France.  The  very  fact 
that  Germany  was  a  large  country  combining  agriculture  and 
manufacture,  surrounded  by  contiguous  neutral  countries,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  insularity  and  almost  complete  industrialization 

S8 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE   SEAS  59 

of  Great  Britain,  explains  the  secondary  importance  of  naval 
power  to  Germany,  and  its  primary  importance  to  Great  Britain. 

Though  the  paramount  purpose  of  the  British  navy  was  de- 
fense, the  Germans  shuddered  perceptibly  when  they  fell  to 
thinking  of  the  purposes  of  offense  for  which  it  would  now  be 
employed.  In  the  first  place  Great  Britain  undertook  a  drastic 
/'war  on  German  trade,"  which  threatened  to  deprive  the  manu- 
facturer of  his  business,  the  workingman  of  his  employment,  and 
the  statesman  of  his  country's  prosperity.  In  the  second  place, 
the  control  of  the  high  seas  by  Great  Britain  would  make  it 
increasingly  difficult  for  Germany  to  carry  on  the  war  success- 
fully ;  it  would  enable  Great  Britain  to  scour  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe  for  recruits  and  to  bring  back  negroes  from  Africa, 
Asiatics  from  India,  Malays,  Australians,  New  Zealanders,  and 
Canadians,  to  fight  in  Europe  against  Germany ;  it  would  make 
possible  the  landing  in  France  of  a  million  British  soldiers  already 
in  training  in  England ;  it  would  create  bitter  hardship  for  the 
civihan  population  of  Germany  through  lack  of  sufficient  food. 
Finally,  even  should  the  German  armies  crush  France  and  Russia, 
the  British  fleet  could  still  stand  between  Germany  and  her 
dreams  of  world  empire,  for  as  long  as  the  British  fleet  sailed  the 
seas  it  could  prevent  Germany  from  becoming  the  greatest 
colonial  and  commercial  Power  and  could  assure  to  Great  Britain 
the  possession  of  the  most  valuable  colonies  and  *' spheres  of 
influence"  throughout  the  world.  It  was  this  naval  superiority 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  thought  of  its  significance  that  caused 
the  Germans  forthwith  to  take  up  the  chanting  of  hymns  of  hate 
as  a  national  pastime. 

Early  in  the  war  the  British  fleet  achieved  much.  Though  it 
could  not  altogether  prevent  the  Germans  from  planting  mines 
and  torpedoes  along  the  coasts  of  the  North  Sea  and  bombarding 
Russian  ports  in  the  Baltic,  it  compelled  the  German  battle 
squadron  to  lie  idle  at  its  moorings  in  Wilhelmshaven,  Cuxhaven, 
and  Kiel.  Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  the  director  of  the  German 
navy,  was  so  much  incHned  to  consider  discretion  the  better  part 
of  valor  that  the  Enghsh  comic  papers  appropriately  styled  him 
the  ''Admiral  of  the  Kiel  Canal."  The  only  hostile  warships 
which  proved  embarrassing  to  the  British  were  two  in  the  Medi- 
terranean and  a  squadron  in  the  Far  East. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  one  of  Germany's  swiftest  and 
most  powerful  battle-cruisers,  the  Goehen,  and  a  light  cruiser,  the 
Breslau,  happened  to  be  in  the  western  Mediterranean,  where 
they  might  conceivably  interfere  with   the   transportation  of 


6o  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

French  troops  from  Algeria  to  France,  but  were  much  more 
Ukely  to  fall  in  with  superior  French  or  British  naval  units. 
British  and  French  warships  immediately  gave  chase  to  the  two 
German  cruisers,  which,  however,  eluded  pursuit  and  made  port 
first  at  Messina  and  then  at  Constantinople.  From  the  refuge 
of  these  cruisers  in  Turkish  waters  led  the  causal  chain  of  cir- 
cumstances which  subsequently  lugged  the  Ottoman  Empire 
into  the  Great  War. 

In  the  Far  East  Germany  possessed  a  squadron  of  eight 
cruisers,  which  early  in  the  war  managed  to  escape  from  the 
naval  base  of  Kiao-chao  and  for  some  time  to  elude  capture  or 
destruction.  Five  of  the  number,  the  Scharnhorst,  Gneisenau, 
Niirnberg,  Leipzig,  and  Dresden,  under  command  of  Admiral  von 
Spee,  were  at  last  sighted  by  Admiral  Cradock's  smaller  British 
squadron  on  the  evening  of  November  i,  1914,  off  the  coast  of 
Chile  near  Coronel.  As  the  sun  sank  behind  the  horizon,  and 
the  heavy  seas  dashed  against  the  bows  of  the  British  ships,  the 
British  gunners  experienced  serious  difficulty  in  training  their 
guns  on  the  German  ships  and  were  unable  to  make  any  impres- 
sion upon  the  heavier  armor  of  the  Germans.  Fifty  minutes 
after  the  first  shot  was  fired,  the  Good  Hope  blew  up,  shooting  a 
column  of  fire  two  hundred  feet  in  the  air.  Shortly  afterwards 
the  Monmouth  was  sunk,  and  the  two  other  British  ships  were 
making  off  to  escape  destruction. 

The  British  had  their  revenge  a  little  more  than  a  month 
later.  On  December  8  a  powerful  British  squadron,  which  had 
been  sent  out  under  Vice- Admiral  Sturdee  to  search  for  the  five 
German  cruisers,  sighted  them  off  the  Falkland  Islands.  Accord- 
ing to  the  laconic  statement  of  the  British  admiralty,  ''an  action 
followed,  in  the  course  of  which  the  Scharnhorst,  flying  the  flag  of 
Admiral  Count  von  Spee,  the  Gneisenau,  and  the  Leipzig  were 
sunk.  The  Dresden  and  the  N Umber g  made  off  during  the 
action  and  are  being  pursued.  Two  colliers  also  were  captured. 
The  Vice  Admiral  reports  that  the  British  casualties  are  very 
few  in  number.  Some  survivors  have  been  rescued  from  the 
Gneisenau  and  the  Leipzig.^'  The  Nurnberg  was  overtaken  and 
destroyed  the  same  night,  but  it  was  not  until  March,  191 5,  that 
the  Dresden  was  wrecked. 

The  three  swift  German  cruisers  in  the  Far  East  not  included 
in  Admiral  von  Spec's  fleet  had  spectacular  careers  for  some 
time  as  commerce  raiders  and  managed  to  inflict  considerable 
injury  on  AlHed  shipping.  One  of  these  cruisers,  the  Emden, 
commanded  by  the  intrepid  Captain  Karl  von  Muller,  cruised 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE   SEAS  6i 

the  waters  about  the  East  Indies  for  three  months,  destroying 
twenty-five  merchant  vessels  valued,  exclusive  of  their  cargoes, 
at  ten  million  dollars,  firing  the  oil  tanks  at  Madras,  sinking  four 
British  steamers  in  Rangoon  harbor  alone,  and  steaUng  into  the 
harbor  of  Penang  disguised  by  the  addition  of  a  false  smokestack 
to  sink  a  Russian  cruiser  and  a  French  torpedo  boat.  The 
Emden  was  not  a  powerful  ship ;  her  displacement  was  only 
3350  tons,  her  speed  less  than  25  knots,  and  her  largest  guns 
only  4.1  inches.  Again  and  again  more  powerful  warships  were 
on  the  Emden^s  trail,  but  each  time  she  escaped,  until  one  day 
Captain  Muller  decided  to  destroy  the  wireless  station  at  Cocos 
Islands,  southwest  of  Java.  There  the  Emden  was  discovered 
by  an  Australian  cruiser  and  driven  ashore  in  flames  after  a 
sharp  battle.  The  career  of  the  second  German  raider,  the 
Konigsberg,  had  come  to  an  end  a  few  days  earlier,  when,  after 
destroying  about  a  dozen  merchantmen,  she  was  caught  hiding 
in  shoal  waters  up  a  river  in  German  East  Africa. 

Once  in  a  while  a  cruiser  would  slip  out  of  a  German  home  base 
and  commit  depredations  on  the  high  seas,  but  such  a  raider 
would  ultimately  be  detected  and  lost.  Thus  the  Prinz  Eitel 
Friedrich  was  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  Newport  News,  Virginia, 
on  March  10,  191 5,  after  a  destructive  cruise  of  more  than 
30,000  miles.  Similarly,  the  Kronprinz  Wilhelm,  after  sinking 
nine  British,  four  French,  and  one  Norwegian  merchantmen, 
entered  Newport  News  on  April  11,  191 5,  and  was  interned. 
But  after  all,  the  number  of  these  German  raiders  was  too  small 
and  their  life  too  precarious  to  constitute  any  grave  menace  to 
British  naval  supremacy  or  even  to  affect  British  commerce  seri- 
ously. The  exploits  were  spectacular  rather  than  significant,  and 
the  most  they  accompHshed  was  to  dwarf  in  popular  esteem  the 
quieter  and  more  substantial  achievements  of  the  British  navy. 

The  fact  remains  that  the  German  merchant  marine  was 
swept  from  the  seas  swiftly  and  methodically  within  a  week  of 
the  outbreak  of  war.  In  every  quarter  of  the  globe  British  war- 
ships, in  conjunction  with  the  fleets  of  France  and  Russia,  spread 
their  net  and  caught  virtually  the  whole  sea-borne  trade  of 
Germany.  German  merchantmen  in  the  ports  of  the  Allies  were 
detained,  and  hundreds  were  made  prizes  of  *'in  the  high  and  the 
narrow  seas."  Some  escaped  to  the  shelter  of  ports  still  neutral, 
especially  to  those  of  the  United  States,  but  none  got  back  to 
Germany.  By  the  sheer  threat  of  naval  superiority,  the  British 
had  annihilated  German  commerce  and  protected  their  own  and 
that  of  their  allies. 


62  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

From  British  naval  superiority  it  resulted,  moreover,  that  the 
French  could  transport  colonial  troops  to  the  battle-line  in 
Western  Europe,  that  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  under  Sir 
John  French  could  be  safely  landed  in  France  in  August,  1914, 
and  that  munitions  and  supplies  could  flow  freely  from  the 
United  States  to  France  and  England  while  their  entrance  into 
Germany  was  effectually  barred. 

Spectacular  deeds  were  not  entirely  confined  to  the  Germans. 
As  early  as  August  28, 191 4,  Sir  David  Beatty,  a  promising  aspir- 
ant for  naval  fame,  led  a  British  fleet,  accompanied  by  a  flotilla 
of  submarines  and  destroyers,  into  the  bight  of  Heligoland  and 
engaged  part  of  the  German  fleet  almost  under  the  guns  of  the 
great  German  naval  base.  Three  German  armored  cruisers  and 
one  destroyer  were  sunk,  and  700  German  sailors  were  killed  and 
300  taken  prisoners ;  the  British  casualties  were  thirty-two  killed 
and  fifty-two  wounded. 

No  other  important  naval  engagement  was  fought  until  the 
battle  off  Dogger  Bank  on  January  24,  191 5,  in  which  a  German 
battle-cruiser  squadron  raiding  the  coast  of  England  was  severely 
punished  for  its  temerity.  Three  powerful  German  cruisers 
were  seriously  injured  by  a  British  fleet  under  Beatty,  but  made 
their  escape  to  Heligoland,  thanks  to  the  dense  screening  smoke 
of  a  destroyer  flotilla  and  to  the  timely  appearance  of  German 
submarines.  A  fourth  cruiser,  however,  the  slower  and  less 
powerful  Blilcher,  fell  an  easy  victim  and  was  first  crippled  by 
gunfire,  then  torpedoed  and  sunk.  The  engagement  was  a  con- 
clusive demonstration  of  the  value  of  big  guns  and  high  speed  in 
modern  naval  warfare. 

THE   PARTICIPATION   OF   JAPAN 

In  mastering  the  seas  and  the  German  colonies  Great  Britain 
enjoyed  the  special  assistance  of  Japan.  On  August  15,  1914,  — 
less  than  two  weeks  after  the  declaration  of  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  Germany,  —  the  Japanese  ambassador  in  Berlin 
handed  to  the  German  Foreign  Office  an  ultimatum,  demanding 
that  Germany  should  immediately  withdraw  all  warships  from 
Chinese  and  Japanese  waters  and  deliver  up  the  entire  leased 
territory  of  Kiao-chao  before  September  15,  ''with  a  view  to  the 
eventual  restoration  of  the  same  to  China." 

Kiao-chao,  it  should  be  remembered,  was  a  bay  on  the  northern 
Chinese  coast,  with  117  square  miles  of  surrounding  territory, 
which  had  been  seized  in  1897  ^^^  ^^^^  leased  for  ninety-nine  years 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS 


63 


by  Germany  as  compensation  for  the  murder  of  two  German 
missionaries  in  China.  At  Tsing-tao,  on  the  leased  ground, 
the  German  government  at  great  expense  had  erected  strong  forti- 
fications, commanding  the  bay;  under  the  shelter  of  frowning 
forts  the  Germans  had  constructed  a  magnificent  floating  dock 
which  made  Tsing-tao  a  splendid  naval  base.  Leading  back 
from  Tsing-tao  the  Germans  had  built  the  Shantung  railway. 
Germany  had  invested  heavily  in  her  Kiao-chao  venture,  and  her 
imperial  position  in  the  Far  East  depended  largely  upon  its 
security. 

Upon  the  refusal  of  the  German  government  to  comply  with 
the  terms  of  the  ultimatum,  Japan  forthwith  declared  war, 
August  23.     The  reasons  for  this  step  were  set  forth  by  Baron 


Nanking 


JAPAN'S  POSITIOS  III  RELATION  TO 
KOBEA.  KIAO-CHAO  AND  CHINA 


Kato,  the  Japanese  foreign  minister:  ''Early  in  August  the 
British  government  asked  the  Imperial  (Japanese)  government 
for  assistance  under  the  terms  of  the  Anglo- Japanese  agreement 
of  alliance.  German  men-of-war  and  armed  vessels  were  then 
prowHng  the  seas  of  eastern  Asia  to  the  serious  menace  of  our 
commerce  and  that  of  our  ally,  while  in  Kiao-chao  Germany  was 
busy  with  warlike  preparations,  apparently  for  the  purpose  of 
making  a  base  for  warlike  operations  in  eastern  Asia.  Grave 
anxiety  was  thus  felt  for  the  maintenance  of  the  peace  of  the  Far 
East.  As  all  are  aware,  the  agreement  of  alliance  between 
Japan  and  Great  Britain  has  for  its  object,  the  consolidation  and 
maintenance  of  the  general  peace  in  eastern  Asia,  insuring  the 
independence  and  integrity  of  China  as  well  as  the  principle  of 
equal  opportunities  for  the  commerce  and  industry  of  all  nations 
in  that  country,  and  the  maintenance  and  defense  respectively 


64  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  the  territorial  rights  and  of  the  special  interests  of  the  con- 
tracting parties  in  eastern  Asia.  .  .  .  Germany's  possession  of 
a  base  for  powerful  activities  in  one  corner  of  the  Far  East  was 
not  only  a  serious  obstacle  to  the  maintenance  of  permanent 
peace,  but  also  was  in  conflict  with  the  more  immediate  interests 
of  the  Japanese  Empire.  The  Japanese  government,  therefore, 
resolved  to  comply  with  the  British  request,  and,  if  necessary, 
to  open  hostilities  against  Germany." 

In  addition  to  her  desire  to  fulfill  her  obligations  as  Great 
Britain's  ally,  Japan  was  undoubtedly  actuated  also  by  the 
lingering  resentment  which  had  been  aroused  by  the  Kaiser's 
references  to  the  ''Yellow  Peril"  and  by  the  part  Germany  had 
played  in  preventing  Japan  from  retaining  Port  Arthur  in  1895 
after  the  Chino- Japanese  War. 

Four  days  after  the  declaration  of  war,  the  Japanese  navy 
estabhshed  a  blockade  of  Kiao-chao  ;  and  on  September  2,  10,000 
Japanese  troops  were  landed  on  the  Shantung  peninsula  outside 
the  German  leased  territory.  This  landing,  and  the  subsequent 
seizure  of  the  Shantung  railway  in  the  Chinese  hinterland,  con- 
stituted a  technical  violation  of  China's  neutrahty  and  called 
forth  formal  protests  from  Berlin  and  from  Pekin.  A  small 
British  East  Indian  force  of  1360  men  arrived  in  September  to 
cooperate  with  the  Japanese  landing  party,  which  was  raised  to 
the  strength  of  23,000  men  under  the  command  of  General  Kamio. 

On  September  28,  Tsing-tao  was  fully  invested  by  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  expedition  and  the  siege  begun.  Bombardment  by 
two  German  cruisers  in  the  harbor  and  a  sortie  by  the  garrison 
failed  to  dislodge  the  assailants.  Prince  Heinrich  hill,  easily 
carried  by  assault,  was  crowned  with  Japanese  guns  which  on 
the  last  day  of  October  opened  the  final  attack  with  the  aid  of 
Japanese  and  British  warships.  The  German  forts,  powerful 
though  they  were,  could  not  withstand  the  terrific  fire.  By 
November  6  the  forts  had  been  silenced,  and  the  word  for  an 
infantry  assault  was  given  by  General  Kamio.  Early  the  next 
morning  the  attacking  party  discovered  that  white  flags  had  been 
hoisted  in  the  city.  The  articles  of  capitulation  were  soon 
signed,  and  on  November  10,  1914,  the  German  governor  for- 
mally handed  over  Kiao-chao  to  Japan.  In  addition  to  the 
valuable  naval  base,  Japan  had  captured  3000  German  prisoners. 
The  Japanese  landing  party  had  lost  236  killed  and  1282 
wounded;  the  British,  12  killed  and  61  wounded. 

In  the  meantime  Japanese  naval  forces  were  cooperating  with 
the  British  in  the  conquest  of  Germany's  island  possessions  in  the 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  65 

Pacific.  Japan  sent  no  troops  to  Europe,  but  her  participation 
in  the  Great  War  served  the  cause  of  the  AlHes  in  several  ways. 
It  deprived  the  swift  German  commerce-raiders  of  a  most  impor- 
tant base  in  the  Far  East ;  it  hastened  the  conquest  of  the  German 
colonies ;  it  enabled  Great  Britain  to  rest  easier  about  her  Indian 
Empire  and  her  Chinese  interests  while  she  was  centering  her 
military  efforts  in  western  Europe ;  and  it  secured  protection  for 
Russia  from  attacks  in  the  rear  and  a  steady,  uninterrupted  flow 
of  munitions  of  war  from  Japan  and  from  America. 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE   GERMAN  COLONIES 

It  had  been  recognized  that  in  case  of  war  between  Germany 
and  Great  Britain,  the  latter's  naval  superiority  would  normally 
admit  of  the  conquest  of  the  former's  colonies  and  "spheres  of 
influence"  in  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  Pacific  Islands.  When  the 
war  actually  came  in  19 14,  the  Germans  trusted  to  two  factors 
which,  they  hoped,  might  delay,  if  not  altogether  prevent,  the 
reduction  of  their  colonies.  In  the  first  place,  mindful  of  an  old 
dictum  that  the  destinies  of  the  world  are  settled  upon  the  battle- 
fields of  Europe,  they  planned  to  strike  their  enemies  on  the 
Continent  with  such  overwhelming  military  might  that  Great 
Britain  could  not  spare  soldiers  from  Europe  for  expeditions 
overseas  and  with  such  decisive  results  that  any  colonies  which 
might  temporarily  have  been  occupied  by  hostile  forces  would 
be  permanently  restored  as  compensation  for  concessions  from 
the  conqueror  of  Europe.  In  the  second  place,  the  Germans  had 
long  cherished  the  notion  that  the  whole  British  Empire  was 
seething  with  discontent  and  sedition  and  that  when  war  came 
Great  Britain  would  be  too  embarrassed  by  revolts  of  her  own 
subjects  in  Ireland,  Canada,  India,  and  South  Africa,  to  bother 
about  the  conquest  of  new  and  foreign  troublesome  areas. 

Obviously  the  first  of  these  factors  on  which  the  Germans 
depended  was  not  quite  operative  even  after  a  whole  year  of  war 
had  gone  by.  Germany  had  not  yet  won  a  decision  on  the  battle- 
fields of  Europe;  France  and  Great  Britain  were  fully  holding 
their  own  on  the  Western  Front,  and  in  the  East  Russia  was 
putting  up  an  unexpectedly  stubborn  resistance.  It  might  well 
be  that  the  old  dictum  was  fallacious,  and  that  a  greater  measure 
of  truth  was  contained  in  the  argument  that  while  other  Powers 
wore  themselves  out  on  the  battlefields  of  Europe  the  nation 
possessing  superior  sea  power  would  conquer  the  four  Great 
Continents.    A  protracted  war  had  not  been  counted  on  by 


66  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Germany,  but  by  the  summer  of  191 5  the  Great  War  promised 
to.be  protracted. 

Nor  did  the  domestic  poKtics  of  the  British  Empire  during  the 
critical  first  year  of  the  war  conform  to  German  expectations. 
There  were  no  serious  and  all-absorbing  revolts  anywhere. 
Many  Irishmen  were  disgruntled  that  the  Home  Rule  Act,  passed 
in  1 9 14,  was  not  immediately  put  into  effect ;  but  John  Redmond, 
the  CathoHc  leader  of  the  Nationalist  party,  joined  with  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  the  fiery  Ulster  Unionist,  in  promising  united 
Irish  defense  against  German  aggression,  and  thousands  of 
Irishmen,  including  several  Irish  members  of  ParHament,  vol- 
unteered for  active  service  in  the  British  army.  In  Canada, 
there  were  many  bickerings  between  English-speaking  and 
French-speaking  colonists  over  the  language  question  in  the 
schools,  but  early  in  the  war  French  Canadians  vied  with  British 
Canadians,  and  Liberal  followers  of  Sir  Wilfred  Laurier  with 
Conservative  partisans  of  Sir  Robert  Borden,  in  offering  their 
lives  and  their  goods  to  the  Empire;  by  October,  191 5,  the  Do- 
minion of  Canada,  with  a  population  less  than  that  of  the  state 
of  New  York,  had  obtained  a  volunteer  army  of  200,000  men,  of 
which  the  larger  part  was  already  in  overseas  service.  From  the 
outset  no  disloyalty  was  expected  from  Newfoundland,  Aus- 
tralia, or  New  Zealand ;  but  as  time  went  on,  these  self-governing 
British  dominions  surpassed  expectations.  Up  to  July,  191 5, 
Australia  had  furnished  100,000  troops  to  the  Allies ;  New  Zea- 
land, 20,000 ;  and  Newfoundland,  3000.  All  these  had  contrib- 
uted funds  beyond  their  proportional  share;  and  the  two  South 
Pacific  dominions  had,  in  addition,  given  valuable  naval  assist- 
ance to  the  Anglo- Japanese  fleets.  India  was  the  more  amazing. 
In  spite  of  systematic  attempts  on  the  part  of  German  agents  and 
spies  to  fan  the  persistent  spark  of  native  unrest  into  the  flame 
of  widespread  rebellion,  India  remained  comparatively  calm  and 
loyal;  numerous  Indian  princes  contributed  to  British  armies 
and  to  British  funds;  in  January,  191 5,  Lord  Hardinge,  the 
viceroy,  declared  that  200,000  Indian  troops  were  then  serving 
in  the  active  British  forces  at  the  front.  Only  in  South  Africa 
was  there  anything  resembling  armed  revolt. 

In  South  Africa,  especially  in  the  Transvaal  and  the  Orange 
Free  State,  the  resentment  which  some  of  the  Boers  still  cherished 
against  their  British  conquerors  combined  with  the  prevalence 
of  acute  industrial  disquiet  to  pave  the  way  for  the  insurrection 
headed  by  three  veteran  generals  of  the  Boer  War  —  Beyers, 
Maritz,  and  DeWet.     However,  General  Louis  Botha,  the  prime 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  67 

minister  of  the  South  African  Union,  who  himself  had  once 
borne  arms  against  Great  Britain,  now  remained  unflinchingly 
loyal,  and  with  him  the  ablest  of  the  Boer  commanders.  General 
Smuts.  The  EngHsh-speaking  South  Africans  and  a  majority  of 
the  Boers  supported  General  Botha's  attitude  of  loyalty  to  the 
Empire ;  only  a  Boer  minority  sympathized  with  the  rebellion. 
The  efforts  of  the  rebels  had  to  be  confined  to  guerrilla  warfare, 
and  by  the  close  of  19 14  had  proved  fruitless.  Beyers  had  been 
drowned,  DeWet  taken  prisoner,  and  Maritz  pursued  into  Ger- 
man Southwest  Africa.  Late  in  December,  1914,  the  Union 
minister  of  justice  stated  that  4000  ex-rebels  were  in  prison  and 
1000  on  parole.  Leniency  was  uniformly  shown  the  rank  and 
file  in  the  trials  which  ensued;  and  in  191 5  Generals  Botha  and 
Smuts  were  aiding  the  British  powerfully  in  the  conquest  of 
German  Southwest  Africa  and  German  East  Africa.  In  Great 
Britain  General  Smuts  was  received  as  a  conquering  hero. 

Under  such  actual  circumstances,  the  British,  with  their  undis- 
puted mastery  of  the  seas,  had  no  great  difliculty  in  mastering 
the  German  colonies.  German  Samoa  surrendered  to  an  expedi- 
tionary force  from  New  Zealand  on  August  28,  19 14.  Aus- 
tralian troops  occupied  Herbertshohe,  the  seat  of  government 
for  the  Bismarck  Archipelago  and  the  Solomon  Islands,  on 
September  11,  and  captured  Kaiser  Wilhelmsland,  September 
24-25.  In  October  a  Japanese  fleet  took  possession  of  the  Mar- 
shall, Marianne,  and  CaroHne  Islands.  By  an  arrangement 
effected  in  November,  19 14,  the  islands  north  of  the  equator  were 
to  be  administered  by  Japan ;  Samoa,  by  New  Zealand ;  and  the 
other  islands  south  of  the  equator,  by  Australia.  The  German 
flag  had  vanished  from  the  South  Seas. 

In  Africa  slower  progress  was  made  in  reducing  the  German 
colonies,  for  they  were  defended  by  fairly  strong  garrisons  of 
German  and  native  troops.  To  be  sure,  Togo,  the  narrow  strip 
on  the  northern  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Guinea,  was  conquered  on 
August  27,  1 9 14,  by  Anglo-French  forces  from  the  adjacent  Brit- 
ish colony  of  Gold  Coast  and  the  French  protectorate  of  Dahomey. 
But  elsewhere  serious  obstacles  were  encountered.  German 
Southwest  Africa  was  invaded  by  forces  from  the  Union  of  South 
Africa,  and  Liideritz  Bay  was  occupied  in  September,  1914;  but 
the  outbreak  of  the  Boer  rebellion  in  the  Union  necessitated  the 
recall  of  the  South  African  troops  and  temporarily  delayed  mil- 
itary operations  against  the  Germans.  In  July,  191 5,  however, 
the  conquest  of  German  Southwest  Africa  was  carried  to  com- 
pletion by  General  Botha.     Meanwhile,   a  French  expedition 


68  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

from  Equatorial  Africa  and  British  expeditions  from  Nigeria  had 
been  penetrating  into  the  jungles  and  fastnesses  of  Kamerun; 
it  was  not  until  February,  1916,  that  they  were  able  to  overcome 
both  the  natural  difficulties  and  the  German  commander's  stub- 
born defense  and  to  put  the  whole  area  under  Anglo-French  rule. 

In  East  Africa  the  German  flag  waved  longest.  Though  Ger- 
man East  Africa  bordered  on  two  British  colonies  and  on  Belgian 
Congo,  its  conquest  proved  difficult  by  reason  of  its  inaccessi- 
bility from  the  hinterland  and  also  by  reason  of  the  marked 
resourcefulness  and  real  abihty  of  the  German  commander.  Gen- 
eral von  Lettow-Vorbeck,  and  the  loyal  and  efficient  aid  which 
the  native  troops  rendered  their  German  officers.  At  the  end  of 
1914  the  coast  was  under  blockade,  but  a  British  advance  from 
South  Africa  waited  on  the  crushing  of  the  Boer  rebellion  and  the 
subjugation  of  German  Southwest  Africa,  and  an  attempted 
invasion  from  British  East  Africa  along  the  shores  of  Victoria 
Nyanza  had  been  checked.  In  191 6,  after  long  and  difficult 
campaigning  on  the  part  of  a  South  African  expeditionary  force 
under  the  tireless  and  energetic  leadership  of  General  Smuts,  the 
Germans  were  driven  out  of  the  northern  and  central  portions  of 
the  colony.  In  June,  191 7,  a  new  offensive  was  begun  and  carried 
on  relentlessly,  so  that  in  November  von  Lettow-Vorbeck  with  a 
slender  column  fled  into  Portuguese  East  Africa.  Here,  in  19 18, 
incessantly  chased,  he  made  his  way  south  nearly  as  far  as  the 
Zambesi ;  then,  retracing  his  steps,  he  came  again  in  September 
into  German  East  Africa,  whence  he  sought  refuge  in  northern 
Rhodesia  and  finally  surrendered  to  the  British  on  November  14, 
1 91 8.  The  surrender  of  von  Lettow-Vorbeck  ended  the  last 
phase  of  German  overseas  control. 

The  conquest  of  the  whole  German  colonial  empire  was  more 
than  a  proof  of  the  naval  superiority  of  Great  Britain.  It  was 
clear  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the  British  Empire  was  less  a 
family  relationship  of  mother-country  and  subject  colonies  than 
an  alliance,  defensive  and  offensive,  between  Great  Britain  and 
British  commonwealths  beyond  the  sea.  Australians  and  New 
Zealanders  who  by  force  of  arms  had  secured  an  imperial  domain 
from  Germany  in  the  South  Seas,  and  South  Africans  who  had 
subjugated  the  vast  tracts  of  German  Southwest  Africa  and 
German  East  Africa,  would  be  even  less  Ukely  than  their  British 
kinsfolk  in  Europe  to  view  with  favor  the  return  of  their  con- 
quests to  Germany  after  the  war ;  they  were  now  by  self-interest 
as  well  as  by  sentiment  thoroughly  committed  to  the  fight  with 
Germany,  to  the  settling  once  for  all,  as  between  Teuton  and 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  69 

Anglo-Saxon,  of  the  leadership  not  merely  of  Europe  but  of  the 
whole  world.  To  English-speaking  peoples  the  globe  over,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  stakes  in  the  old  historic  conflict  for  commercial 
and  colonial  supremacy  between  Englishman  and  Spaniard  or 
between  Englishman  and  Frenchman  were  pitiful  indeed  in  com- 
parison with  these  mighty  universal  stakes  of  the  twentieth 
century  between  British  and  Germans. 

TURKEY'S  SUPPORT  OF  GERMANY 

For  at  least  twenty  years  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Great 
War,  German  influence  had  been  steadily  growing  in  the  Otto- 
man Empire.  German  military  offlcers  had  reorganized,  trained, 
and  equipped  the  Turkish  army.  German  business-men  had 
exploited  the  natural  resources  and  trade  of  Turkey.  German 
capitalists  were  constructing  the  Anatolian  and  Bagdad  railways^ 
which  stretched  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  Ger- 
man ambassadors  and  foreign  secretaries  had  repeatedly  posed 
as  champions  of  the  integrity  of  the  Ottomon  Empire  and  had 
exerted  themselves  on  many  occasions  to  bolster  up  the  declining 
fortunes  of  the  Sultan  and  to  apologize  for  acts  of  the  Turkish 
government  which  outraged  the  conscience  of  Christian  Europe. 
In  fact,  by  the  year  19 14  Turkey  was  regarded  both  politically 
and  economically  as  a  German  ^'sphere  of  influence,"  and  dis- 
tinguished German  publicists,  Hke  Friedrich  Naumann  and  Paul 
Rohrbach,  were  extolling  the  mission  of  Germany  as  the  leading 
Power  in  a  federation  of  ^'  Mittel-Europa,''  a  federation  that 
would  include  Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  and  certain  Balkan 
states,  and  would  dominate  the  economic  and  political  life  of 
the  varied  peoples  from  the  Baltic  and  North  Seas  to  Bagdad 
and  ports  on  the  Persian  Gulf. 

Many  Englishmen  had  come  to  feel  before  the  war  that  the 
scheme  of  a  Germanized  Mittel-Europa,  especially  the  scheme 
for  the  Bagdad  railway,  was  not  only  a  promise  of  great  economic 
gain  to  Germany  but  a  threat  against  British  ascendency  in 
India  and  in  Egypt.  Russian  imperialists,  also,  grew  fearful, 
as  they  beheld  the  strengthening  of  German  influence  at  Con- 
stantinople, lest  their  ancient  dream  of  restoring  an  Eastern 
Empire  under  a  Muscovite  Tsar  would  never  be  realized.  It  was 
primarily  against  Germany's  designs  in  Turkey  and  in  Persia 
that  Russia  and  Great  Britain  had  concluded  their  entente  in 
1907 ;  and  thenceforth,  the  Entente  Powers,  including  France, 
had  been  arrayed  against  the  Teutonic  Powers  in  nearly  all  dip- 


70  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

lomatic  manoeuvers  involving  Turkey.  On  most  occasions  the 
Teutonic  Powers  professed  to  champion  the  Turks,  while  the 
Entente  Powers  were  represented  as  the  enemies  of  Turkey. 
Such  was  certainly  the  case  in  the  Balkan  War  of  1912-1913: 
at  London,  Paris,  and  Petrograd  rejoicing  marked  the  receipt  of 
news  of  Turkish  defeats  and  of  the  shrinkage  of  Ottoman  terri- 
tory; regret  and  grief  marked  the  receipt  of  the  same  news  at 
Berlin  and  at  Vienna.  This  distinction  the  Ottoman  govern- 
ment speedily  perceived ;  and  Enver  Pasha,  the  most  conspicu- 
ous and  influential  leader  of  the  dominant  Young  Turk  Party 
since  the  Turkish  revolution  of  1908  and  the  national  Turkish 
hero  in  the  Balkan  war  of  1912-1913,  became  an  ardent  Ger- 
manophile.  Turkey,  under  the  guidance  of  Enver  Pasha,  was 
predisposed  to  support  Germany  in  the  crisis  of  the  Great  War. 

Soon  after  the  declaration  of  war,  two  German  cruisers  in  the 
Mediterranean,  the  Goeben  and  the  Breslau,  took  refuge,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  the  harbor  of  Constantinople.  There  their  German 
officers  and  crews  cooperated  with  German  agents  and  with 
Enver  Pasha  and  other  Germanophile  Turks  in  inflaming  popular 
sentiment  against  the  Allies.  Some  members  of  the  Turkish 
ministry  hesitated  to  hazard  an  actual  war  with  Britain  and 
Russia,  but  they  could  not  act  independently  while  their  capital 
was  honeycombed  with  German  propaganda  and  threatened  by 
two  powerful  German  cruisers  cleared  for  action.  The  officers 
and  men  of  the  cruisers  refused  to  put  to  sea  or  to  be  interned ; 
the  Turkish  government,  even  if  it  so  desired,  did  not  have  ade- 
quate means  of  enforcing  its  international  obligations  in  this 
respect ;  the  Allies  protested ;  the  Turks  answered  by  abrogating 
the  *' capitulations,"  under  which  foreigners  on  Ottoman  soil  had 
been  tried  by  judges  of  their  own  nationahty;  again  the  AlHes 
protested ;  the  Turks  under  German  pressure  replied  by  closing 
the  Dardanelles  to  commerce,  thereby  cutting  Mediterranean 
communication  with  Russia ;  again  the  Allies  protested ;  and  the 
Turks  joyfully  received  a  fresh  batch  of  officers  from  Berlin  to 
prepare  them  for  war. 

On  October  29,  1914,  the  Breslau,  now  masquerading  as  a 
Turkish  cruiser,  shelled  Russian  towns  on  the  Black  Sea,  and 
three  Turkish  torpedo-boats  raided  the  port  of  Odessa.  Finding 
the  responsible  Turkish  authorities  unwilling  or  unable  to  make 
reparation  for  these  hostile  acts  or  to  take  steps  to  prevent  their 
repetition,  the  Allied  ambassadors  asked  for  their  passports  and 
left  Constantinople.  On  November  3,  Russia  proclaimed  hos- 
tiUties,  and  two  days  later  Great  Britain  and  France  declared 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  71 

war  against  the  Ottoman  Empire.  Turkey  had  definitely  cast 
her  lot  with  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary. 

Turkey  could  not  be  of  immediate,  direct  military  value  to  the 
Teutonic  Powers,  for  from  them  she  was  separated  by  Bulgaria 
and  Rumania,  both  of  which  were  still  neutral,  and  by  Serbia, 
which  was  hostile.  Turkish  armies  could  not  be  brought  to  the 
Teutonic  battle-lines  in  France  or  in  Poland.  Yet  the  Germans 
welcomed  the  support  of  Turkey  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Mohammedan  Turks  were  counted  upon  to  stir  up  the 
fellow-Moslem  populations  of  Morocco,  Algeria,  Egypt,  and 
India,  to  engage  in  a  ''Holy  War"  against  Great  Britain  and 
France.  In  the  second  place,  the  Turkish  army  was  expected  to 
require  the  attention  of  a  considerable  body  of  Russian  and 
British  troops,  who  would  thus  be  prevented  from  participating 
in  the  battles  of  Galicia  and  Flanders.  Neither  of  these  expec- 
tations was  fully  realized.  The  "Holy  War,"  it  is  true,  was 
solemnly  proclaimed  at  Constantinople  on  November  15,  19 14, 
but  despite  some  spasmodic  uprisings  in  Morocco  against  French 
rule  and  a  certain  amount  of  general  Moslem  unrest  elsewhere, 
in  the  main  the  Mohammedan  subjects  of  Great  Britain  and 
France  gave  little  heed  to  the  Chief  of  the  Faithful  at  Constan- 
tinople. No  general  insurrection  ensued,  and  the  hoped-for 
diversion  from  the  conquest  of  German  colonies  overseas  was  not 
forthcoming.  Nor  were  the  AlHed  forces  in  Europe  seriously 
weakened  by  Turkey's  entry  into  the  war.  The  Russians  uti- 
lized such  forces  as  they  could  not  easily  transport  to  Poland  to 
inaugurate  their  campaign  from  the  Caucasus  into  Armenia; 
the  British  could  depend  largely  on  colonial  troops  to  defend 
Egypt  and  to  invade  Mesopotamia;  and  the  Alhes  might  even 
count  on  a  timely  Mohammedan  diversion  in  their  favor  within 
the  Ottoman  Empire  itself,  for  the  Arabs  of  the  Hedjaz,  under  their 
respected  chieftain,  the  Sherif  of  Mecca,  were  disgusted  with  the 
Young  Turk  regime  at  Constantinople  and  were  ripe  for  revolt. 

In  one  way  Turkey's  entry  into  the  war  was  a  boomerang 
against  Germany.  To  Germany  the  ''sphere  of  influence"  in 
Turkey  was  of  far  greater  economic  and  political  importance 
than  all  her  "colonies"  in  Africa  and  in  the  South  Seas  put  to- 
gether. The  latter,  under  the  German  flag,  were  an  obvious  and 
quick  prey  to  Great  Britain's  naval  superiority,  but  so  long  as 
Turkey  remained  out  of  the  war  the  German  sphere  of  influence 
in  Anatolia  and  Mesopotamia  was  protected  by  the  neutral 
Crescent  flag.  As  soon  as  Turkey  entered  the  war,  however, 
Great  Britain's  naval  superiority  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon 


72  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Germany's  interests  in  the  Near  East  as  well  as  upon  her  interests 
in  Africa  and  Oceanica.  If  German  imperialists  were  devoted 
to  a  Berlin-to-Bagdad  Mittel-Europa  project,  there  were  British 
imperiahsts  whose  hearts  and  minds  were  set  upon  a  Suez-to- 
Singapore  South-Asia  project.  The  Ottoman  Empire  occupied 
a  strategic  position  in  both  schemes.  A  neutral  Turkey,  on  the 
whole,  was  favorable  to  German  imperialism.  A  Turkey  in 
armed  alHance  with  Germany  presented  a  splendid  opportunity 
for  British  imperiaHsm. 

Coincident  with  Turkey's  entry  into  the  war,  the  British  for- 
mally annexed  the  Greek-speaking  island  of  Cyprus,  in  ''miUtary 
occupation"  of  which  they  had  been  since  1878.  On  December 
17,  1914,  the  legal  status  of  Egypt  was  changed  by  a  decision  of 
the  British  government:  ''In  view  of  the  state  of  war  arising 
out  of  the  action  of  Turkey,  Egypt  is  placed  under  the  protection 
of  His  Britannic  Majesty,  and  will  henceforth  constitute  a  British 
protectorate.  The  suzerainty  of  Turkey  is  thus  terminated. 
His  Majesty's  government  will  adopt  all  the  measures  necessary 
for  the  defense  of  Egypt  and  the  protection  of  its  inhabitants  and 
interests."  At  the  same  time  the  khedive  of  Egypt,  Abbas  II, 
who  had  thrown  in  his  lot  with  Turkey,  was  deposed,  and  the 
Egyptian  crown  was  given,  with  the  title  of  sultan,  to  Hussein 
Kemal  Pasha,  an  uncle  of  the  khedive.  Already  a  British  force 
from  India  had  landed  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  had  taken 
Basra  on  November  23,  and  was  preparing  for  an  invasion  of 
Mesopotamia,  with  Bagdad,  three  hundred  miles  up  the  Tigris, 
as  the  objective.  In  vain  the  Turks  struggled  against  their 
foes  on  many  fronts :  their  efforts  to  invade  Russian  Caucasia 
and  to  drive  the  Russians  from  northwestern  Persia  were  frus- 
trated in  January,  191 5,  and  their  attacks  on  the  Suez  Canal 
failed  dismally  in  February,  191 5. 

An  opportunity  of  another  kind  was  afforded  the  AlHes  by 
Turkey's  entry  into  the  war.  It  might  now  be  possible  to  dis- 
integrate the  whole  Ottoman  Empire  and  to  utilize  the  extensive 
spoils  as  inducements  for  strengthening  and  enlarging  the  armed 
alliance  against  the  Teutonic  Powers.  Here  was  an  opportunity 
for  Great  Britain  and  France  to  undo  the  work  which  they  had 
accompUshed  in  the  Crimean  War,  and  by  pledging  Constan- 
tinople to  Russia  to  bind  their  Eastern  ally  more  closely  to 
themselves.  Here,  too,  was  an  opportunity  for  the  Entente 
Powers  to  draw  Italy  into  a  firm  alHance  with  themselves  :  Italy 
had  long  been  anghng  in  the  troubled  waters  of  Near  Eastern 
diplomacy;  she  could  now  be  promised  Albania  and  attractive 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  73 

imperialistic  concessions  in  Asiatic  Turkey.  From  Turkish 
spoils,  moreover,  sufficient  territorial  rewards  might  be  dangled 
before  the  eyes  of  Balkan  statesmen  to  actuate  them  to  put  aside 
their  mutual  jealousies,  to  reconstitute  the  Balkan  League  of  191 2, 
and  to  add  the  considerable  weight  of  their  joint  armaments  to 
the  forces  of  the  AlHes.  Of  the  Balkan  states,  Serbia  and  Monte- 
negro had  the  least  to  gain  from  making  war  on  Turkey,  but 
they  were  already  serving  manfully  the  Allied  cause.  Bulgaria, 
however,  after  conquering  Adrianople  in  the  First  Balkan  War, 
had  been  despoiled  of  that  rich  prize  by  the  Turks  in  1913  ;  now, 
if  she  would  espouse  the  cause  of  the  AlUes,  she  might  recover 
what  she  had  lost.  Greece,  likewise,  might  be  rewarded  for 
timely  aid  by  securing  the  Greek-speaking  cities  of  Asia  Minor, 
which  were  still  oppressed  by  foreign,  Turkish  rule,  but  toward 
which  the  free  Greeks  turned  ever  longing  eyes.  A  grand  alli- 
ance cemented  between  the  Balkan  States,  Italy,  Russia,  France, 
and  Great  Britain,  would  admit  of  the  crushing  not  only  of  Tur- 
key but  of  Austria-Hungary  and  Germany.  The  prospect  was 
alluring. 

Turkey  had  gone  to  the  support  of  Germany  in  October,  1914. 
This  action,  however,  did  not  serve,  as  the  Germans  expected, 
to  stay  the  conquest  of  the  German  colonies  by  Great  Britain. 
Rather,  it  widened  the  area  which  the  British  might  master  and 
the  opportunity  which  British  naval  superiority  could  seize. 
Nay  more,  it  offered  the  Allies  a  chance  to  terminate  the  Great 
War  favorably  to  their  own  interests  by  a  noteworthy  coup  in  the 
Near  East. 


GERMANY'S   COUNTER-OFFENSIVE  ON  THE   SEAS 

It  was  apparent  soon  after  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  that 
England  was  mastering  the  seas  and  vast  dominions  beyond  the 
seas.  Neither  rebelHon  within  the  British  Empire  nor  the  strug- 
gle on  the  continent  of  Europe  was  staying  the  rapid  loss  of 
German  commerce,  German  colonies,  and  German  ^'spheres  of 
influence."  Japan  was  assisting  Great  Britain,  and  to  Germany 
Turkey  was  rapidly  becoming  a  hindrance  rather  than  an  aid. 
Could  not  some  counter-offensive  be  undertaken  against  the 
Mistress  of  the  Seas,  some  measures  that  would  terrify  her 
merchants  and  paralyze  her  industry?  Could  not  Teutonic 
*'f rightfulness"  succeed  where  Teutonic  force  failed? 

In  attempting  to  answer  these  questions,  the  German  author- 
ities from  the  beginning  of  the  war  utilized  such  weapons  of 


74  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

''{rightfulness"  as  floating  mines,  naval  raids  on  unprotected 
English  coast  towns,  and  the  bombardment  of  populous  cities  by 
Zeppelins  and  other  aircraft.  Allusion  has  already  been  made 
to  the  planting  of  mines  by  the  Germans  along  the  North  Sea 
coasts;  these  mines  caused  considerable  loss  to  British  and 
AlHed  shipping. 

Moreover,  it  was  occasionally  possible  for  a  few  very  swift 
German  cruisers  to  elude  the  powerful  British  squadrons  in  the 
North  Sea  and  to  conduct  a  sudden  raid  along  the  English  and 
Scottish  coasts.  Thus,  for  example,  on  November  3,  1914, 
German  warships  threw  shells  at  the  towns  of  Yarmouth  and 
Lowestoft ;  and  in  a  second  raid,  on  December  16,  they  inflicted 
a  good  deal  of  damage  on  three  other  coast  towns.  At  Hartle- 
pool, the  only  one  of  the  three  towns  which  could  be  called  a 
fortified  place,  119  persons  were  killed  and  over  300  were 
wounded.  Scarborough  suffered  less  severely,  losing  eighteen 
killed,  mostly  women  and  children,  and  about  seventy  wounded. 
Whitby,  the  third  town  to  be  bombarded  on  this  occasion,  re- 
ported the  destruction  of  many  houses,  but  only  three  persons 
killed  and  two  wounded.  These  raids  called  forth  angry  pro- 
tests from  the  English  press,  on  the  ground  that  the  shelling  of 
unfortified  places,  and  the  kilHng  of  unsuspecting  civilians,  was  a 
needless  barbarity  and  could  serve  no  miHtary  purpose.  But 
obviously  the  German  government  considered  it  as  important 
to  strike  terror  into  the  heart  of  the  civiHan  as  to  disarm  the 
soldier. 

This  was  probably  the  major  purpose  of  the  frequent  attacks 
made  by  German  aviators  on  cities  Hke  London  and  Dover,  to 
say  nothing  of  Paris  and  Antwerp.  Bombs  dropped  from  a 
Zeppelin  or  from  an  airplane  might  demolish  a  building  or  two 
and  kill  a  few  women  and  children,  but  they  would  hardly 
destroy  extensive  fortifications.  Undoubtedly  German  air- 
raids compelled  the  British  to  maintain  a  large  defensive  air- 
force  at  London  and  thereby  hampered  Allied  air-offensives  on 
the  fighting  front  in  France,  but  as  a  rule  they  were  spectacular 
and  attracted  attention  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  real  impor- 
tance. They  were  significant,  however,  in  that  they  brought 
the  Great  War  directly  home  to  England's  civilian  population 
and  aroused  a  national  rage  against  the  ''Huns."  It  was  the 
first  time  since  the  Norman  Conquest  that  the  soil  of  England 
had  been  violated  by  foreign  foes ;  never  before  had  there  been  in 
England  such  enthusiastic  volunteering  for  naval  defense  at 
home  and  for  military  offense  overseas. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE   SEAS  75 

The  chief  weapon  of  the  German  counter-offensive  remains  to 
be  mentioned  —  the  submarine.  From  the  outset  Germany 
recognized  that  it  would  be  idle  to  risk  its  "  supermarine  "  fleet  in 
a  conflict  with  the  far  more  powerful  British  navy.  But  her  sub- 
marines she  could  use  to  destroy  not  only  belligerent  warships 
but  enemy  merchantmen,  and  even  neutral  vessels  of  the  latter 
sort  if  they  were  thought  to  carry  contraband.  All  the  Great 
Powers  had  fleets  of  submarines  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but 
from  the  very  nature  of  things  only  the  Teutonic  Powers  found 
general  use  for  submarines.  As  German  warships  and  German 
merchantmen  were  speedily  driven  from  the  seas  by  British 
naval  superiority,  British  submarines  had  little  or  nothing  to  do. 
On  the  other  hand,  German  submarines  now  had  much  to  do. 
France  and  Russia  might  be  invaded  by  German  armies,  but  the 
only  way  for  Germany  to  strike  directly  at  Great  Britain  was  by 
means  of  the  submarine.  The  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain,  to 
live,  had  to  import  large  quantities  of  foodstuffs;  to  finance 
their  government  and  their  allies  in  the  Great  War,  they  had  to 
keep  their  industries  going,  import  raw  materials,  and  export 
manufactured  goods ;  to  provide  themselves  with  sufficient  muni- 
tions of  war  to  cope  with  militaristic  Germany,  they  had  to  rely 
in  part  upon  the  United  States.  Hence  uninterrupted  sea-trade 
was  essential  to  Great  Britain's  prosecution  of  the  war.  To 
most  Germans  it  seemed  as  if  the  submarine  was  providentially 
placed  in  their  hands  to  enable  them  to  achieve  what  a  Napoleon 
had  not  achieved,  the  breaking  of  Britain's  sea  power.  By 
means  of  the  submarine  they  would  stop  the  flow  of  munitions 
from  America,  they  would  deprive  England  of  her  foreign  mar- 
kets, they  would  halt  the  turning  of  her  factory- wheels,  they 
would  bankrupt  and  starve  her,  they  would  obhge  her  to  lift  the 
blockade  she  had  imposed  on  Germany,  they  would  ultimately 
vanquish  her.  Germany  would  then  regain  a  colonial  empire 
and  secure  naval  superiority.  Thereby  would  the  ''freedom  of 
the  seas,"  in  a  German  sense,  be  estabhshed. 

The  Germans  imagined  that  they  could  count  on  some  aid 
from  the  United  States  in  forwarding  their  counter-offensive  on 
the  seas.  Early  in  the  war  the  American  government,  like  the 
governments  of  other  neutral  countries,  was  strenuously  engaged 
in  controversy  with  Great  Britain  over  questions  of  contraband, 
blockade,  and  interference  with  mails.  Most  of  the  historic 
claims  of  the  United  States  for  the  right  of  neutral  trade  in  time 
of  war  had  been  sanctioned  by  a  declaration  drawn  up  at  London 
in  1909  by  authorities  on  international  law,  but  as  it  had  not 


76  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

been  formally  ratified  by  all  the  maritime  Powers  the  United 
States  could  not  get  Great  Britain  to  observe  it  in  letter  or  in 
spirit.  In  fact,  the  British  government,  ii^  its  endeavors  to 
"starve  out"  Germany,  arbitrarily  lengthened  the  contraband 
list,  detained  and  seized  cargoes  in  transit  from  America  to  Ger- 
many, even  from  America  to  neutral  Denmark  and  Holland,  and 
systematically  intercepted  and  inspected  neutral  mail.  The 
result  was  a  notable  depression  in  many  American,  as  well  as 
German,  industries,  a  rising  wave  of  ill-feehng  against  England, 
and  the  dispatch  of  an  energetic  note  of  protest  by  the  United 
States  to  Great  Britain  on  December  26,  1914. 

On  the  same  day  the  German  government  contributed  to  the 
complications  of  the  situation  by  placing  under  public  control  all 
of  the  food  supply  of  the  Empire.  This  meant  that  no  distinction 
could  henceforth  be  made  between  foodstuffs  imported  into 
Germany  for  military  use  and  similar  imports  for  the  use  of  non- 
combatants.  Wherefore  the  British  government  at  once  de- 
clared that  all  foodstuffs  intended  for  consumption  in  Germany 
would  be  treated  as  contraband.  Neutral  trade  with  Germany 
was  thus  practically  prohibited,  and  American  grievances  against 
Great  Britain  towered  higher.  A  test  case  was  made  with  the 
steamship  Wilhelmina,  which  reached  England  early  in  February, 
1 91 5,  from  the  United  States,  loaded  with  grain  for  Germany. 
She  was  seized  by  the  local  authorities  and  condemned  by  a 
British  prize  court.  It  seemed  an  auspicious  moment  for  the 
launching  of  the  German  counter-offensive. 

So  far  the  operations  of  German  submarines  had  been  re- 
stricted to  attacks  on  enemy  warships  and  on  a  few  enemy  mer- 
chantmen. Now,  on  February  4,  191 5,  Germany  announced 
that  from  February  18  onward  the  waters  around  the  British 
Isles  would  be  considered  a  ''war  zone,"  that  every  enemy  mer- 
chant vessel  found  there  "would  be  destroyed  without  its  always 
being  possible  to  warn  the  crew  or  passengers  of  the  dangers 
threatening,"  and  that  ''even  neutral  ships  would  be  exposed  to 
danger  in  the  war  zone."  This  proclamation  heralded  the 
beginning  of  the  great  German  counter-offensive  on  the  seas, 
unrestricted  submarine  warfare. 

Grave  dangers  lurked  in  the  counter-offensive,  for  the  sub- 
marine was  a  novel  weapon  for  the  purpose  and  one  whose  status 
was  not  at  all  expKcitly  established  by  international  usage. 
According  to  recognized  rules  of  international  law  the  pro- 
cedure for  capture  of  merchantmen  at  sea  was  fairly  simple : 
the  merchantman  must  first  be  warned  and  ordered  to  undergo 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS 


77 


search;  if  then  the  merchantman  resisted,  she  might  be  sunk; 
otherwise  the  enemy  warship  might  place  a  prize  crew  on  the 
captured  merchantman  and  take  her  to  port,  or  might  sink  her 
provided  the  safety  of  her  passengers  and  crew  was  assured. 
But  this  procedure,  quite  appHcable  to  an  ordinary  warship,  was 


strikingly  inapplicable  to  a  submarine.  In  the  first  place,  a  sub- 
marine had  to  attack  quickly  and  without  warning,  for  its  frail 
construction  would  make  it  an  easy  prey,  if  observed,  even  for 
merchantmen.  Secondly,  the  crew  of  a  submarine  was  so  small 
that  members  could  not  be  spared  to  constitute  a  prize  crew  on 
a  captured  merchantman.  And  thirdly,  a  submarine  was  so 
slight  that  it  could  not  itself  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  pas- 


78  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

sengers  and  crew  of  a  merchantman  which  it  might  sink.  To 
sink  a  merchantman  by  a  first  shot  and  to  leave  all  persons  on 
board  to  shift  for  themselves  as  best  they  could,  was  the  only 
practicable  method  of  "capture"  by  German  submarines.  For 
this  kind  of  "capture"  there  was  absolutely  no  authority  in 
international  custom  or  wont. 

A  twofold  embarrassment  now  confronted  the  United  States 
and  other  neutral  countries.  On  the  one  hand,  trade  with 
Germany  was  cut  off  by  the  British.  On  the  other  hand,  trade 
with  Great  Britain  was  menaced  by  German  submarines,  and  not 
only  trade  but  lives  of  neutral  citizens  also.  On  February  lo, 
1 91 5,  the  American  government  sent  a  communication  to  the 
German  government,  calHng  attention  to  the  serious  difficulties 
that  might  arise  if  the  contemplated  policy  of  waging  unre- 
stricted submarine  warfare  were  carried  out,  and  declaring  that 
it  would  hold  Germany  to  a  "strict  accountabihty "  if  any  mer- 
chant vessel  of  the  United  States  was  destroyed  or  citizens  of 
the  United  States  lost  their  lives. 

American  expostulations  ehcited  from  Berhn  as  well  as  from 
London  only  nicely- worded  "explanatory  "  and  " supplementary  " 
notes.  The  situation  grew  ever  more  embarrassing  to  neutrals. 
On  the  one  hand,  Mr.  Asquith,  the  British  premier,  declared  on 
March  i  that  Great  Britain  and  France,  in  retaliation  for  Ger- 
many's declaration  of  the  "war  zone"  around  the  British  Isles, 
would  confiscate  all  goods  of  "presumed  enemy  destination, 
ownership,  or  origin" ;  no  neutral  vessel  sailing  from  a  German 
port  would  be  allowed  to  proceed,  and  no  vessel  would  be  suffered 
to  sail  to  any  German  port.  On  the  other  hand,  Germany  pro- 
ceeded to  carry  out  her  threats  in  the  "war  zone."  In  March, 
191 5,  an  American  citizen  lost  his  life  in  the  sinking  of  a  British 
steamship ;  on  April  28  an  American  vessel  was  attacked  by  a 
German  airplane ;  and  three  days  later  an  assault  upon  an  Amer- 
ican steamer  by  a  submarine  caused  the  death  of  three  American 
citizens. 

Before  the  government  of  the  United  States  had  formulated 
any  action  in  connection  with  these  cases,  the  whole  civilized 
world  was  shocked  at  the  terrible  news  that  the  unarmed  Cunard 
Line  steamship  Liisitania  had  been  sunk  on  May  7,  191 5,  by  a 
German  submarine  off  Old  Head  of  Kinsale  at  the  southeastern 
point  of  Ireland,  with  the  loss  of  1195  lives,  of  whom  114  were 
known  to  be  American  citizens.  The  first  feeling  of  horror  at  the 
catastrophe  was  succeeded  in  the  United  States  by  a  feehng  of 
bitter  resentment  at  what  was  certainly  a  ruthless  sacrifice  of 


GREAT  BRITAIN  MASTERS  THE  SEAS  79 

innocent  civilians.  It  appeared  at  first  as  if  a  break  between  the 
United  States  and  Germany  was  immediately  inevitable.  Pres- 
ident Wilson,  however,  was  resolved  to  act  "with  dehberation 
as  well  as  with  firmness,"  and  there  ensued  a  protracted  inter- 
change of  diplomatic  notes  between  the  American  and  German 
governments,  interspersed  now  and  then  with  new  submarine 
outrages  and  with  new  crises.  The  United  States  was  not  the 
only  neutral  Power  which  suffered  from  Germany's  counter- 
offensive  ;  the  Scandinavian  countries,  Holland,  Spain,  and  Latin 
America  suffered  serious  losses,  too.  But  the  United  States  was 
a  Great  Power,  and  one  whose  friendship  Germany  could  ill 
afford  to  lose. 

In  spite  of  widespread  German  propaganda  in  America,  the 
grievances  of  the  United  States  against  Germany  came  to  weigh 
more  heavily  than  those  against  Great  Britain.  Property  rights 
alone  were  involved  in  the  latter,  and  they  could  be  redressed 
after  the  war  in  accordance  with  the  arbitration  treaty  in  force 
between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Between  the 
United  States  and  Germany  there  was  no  general  arbitration 
treaty,  and  even  if  there  were  it  would  be  impossible  to  arbitrate 
the  loss  of  human  Hfe,  in  addition  to  property,  which  the  sub- 
marine warfare  involved.  Germany  had  counted  on  American 
sympathy,  if  not  active  assistance,  in  her  counter-offensive. 
She  soon  found  that  in  practice  it  aroused  American  enmity. 
How  far  could  she  go  with  it  and  still  keep  the  United  States 
neutral  ? 

During  the  year  191 5  Germany  did  not  press  her  counter- 
offensive  on  the  seas  to  the  utmost.  She  was  "feehng  her  way" 
with  neutral  Powers.  Yet  the  sinkings  of  AlKed  merchantmen 
in  that  experimental  year  were  sufficient  to  convince  the  German 
admiralty  that  a  perfectly  ruthless  and  unrestricted  submarine 
campaign  would  compel  Great  Britain  to  sue  for  peace  "in  six 
months  at  the  most."  Before  undertaking  such  a  final  holo- 
caust, it  would  be  best,  in  German  opinion,  to  crush  the  British 
alHes  on  the  Continent.  This  done,  all  the  resources  of  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary,  all  their  raiding  cruisers,  all  their  Zep- 
peHns  and  airplanes,  all  their  subtle  submarines,  could  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  task  of  disputing  with  Britain  the  mastery  of 
the  seas  and  of  dominions  beyond  the  seas. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ALLIES  ENDEAVOR  TO   DOMINATE  THE  NEAR  EAST 

ALLIED   OPTIMISM  IN  THE   SPRING  OF   1915 

The  events  narrated  in  the  three  preceding  chapters,  occurring 
simultaneously  in  the  autumn  of  19 14  and  the  winter  of  1914- 
191 5,  gave  the  Allies  confidence  in  ultimate  victory.  Germany 
had  counted  upon  a  speedy,  decisive  crushing  of  France  and  upon 
the  abiHty  of  Austria-Hungary  to  hold  the  Russians  in  check  until 
the  joint  forces  of  the  Teutonic  Powers  could  overwhelm  the 
Muscovite  ''hordes."  Germany  had  also  scoffed  at  England's 
''contemptible  Httle  army"  and  had  relied  upon  uprisings  within 
the  British  Empire  to  prevent  Great  Britain  from  giving  timely 
aid  to  France  or  Russia.  All  these  calculations  had  been  upset. 
France  was  not  crushed.  Austria  had  suffered  a  Russian  inva- 
sion of  Galicia.  No  serious  revolt  had  broken  out  in  the  British 
Empire,  and  Britain's  army  in  Flanders  was  growing  less  and  less 
"contemptible"  as  the  days  went  by. 

In  the  West  the  fighting  had  been  taken  out  of  the  open  field 
and  confined  to  trenches,  and  the  allied  French,  British,  and  Bel- 
gians were  conducting  a  "war  of  attrition,"  gradually  "nibbling" 
at  the  German  fines  and  gradually  depleting  the  German  forces. 
In  the  East,  it  is  true,  the  Russian  invasion  of  Galicia  had  been 
offset  by  a  Teutonic  invasion  of  Poland ;  several  disastrous  de- 
feats had  overtaken  Russian  armies ;  and  it  was  already  obvious 
that  without  adequate  railway  facifities,  without  proper  training 
and  equipment,  and  without  sufficient  ammunition,  the  Russian 
"hordes"  could  not  immediately  menace  Germany.  In  short, 
by  the  spring  of  191 5  it  had  become  reasonably  clear  that  neither 
the  efficiency  of  the  Germans  nor  the  numbers  of  the  Russians 
would  suffice  to  achieve  a  quick  victory.  The  Great  War  was  to 
be  a  long  war.  It  was  to  be  an  endurance-test,  in  which  mere 
battles  might  play  a  far  less  decisive  role  than  political  and  eco- 
nomic factors. 

A  long  war,  an  endurance-test,  appealed  more  to  the  Allies  than 
to  the  Germans.     The  outcome  of  such  a  struggle  would  depend 

80 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST     8i 

not  upon  the  military  might  of  the  moment  but  upon  collective 
national  resources  of  men,  munitions,  and  money.  And  the  AlHed 
Powers  were  conceded  to  be  vastly  superior  to  the  Teutonic  Pow- 
ers in  latent  resources.  As  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  the  EngUsh 
statesman,  put  it :  ''It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  win  the  war  to 
push  the  German  line  back  over  all  the  territory  they  have  ab- 
sorbed, nor  to  pierce  it.  While  the  German  lines  extend  far  be- 
yond their  frontiers,  while  their  flag  flies  over  conquered  capitals 
and  subjected  provinces,  while  all  the  appearances  of  military 
success  greet  their  arms,  Germany  may  be  defeated  more  fatally 
in  the  second  or  third  year  of  the  war  than  if  the  Allied  armies 
had  entered  Berlin  in  the  first  year."  The  factors  upon  which 
Mr.  Churchill,  in  common  with  other  Allied  and  pro-Ally  ob- 
servers, counted  to  insure  the  Entente's  final  victory,  may  be 
indicated  in  five  brief  paragraphs. 

(i)  Resources  of  Men.  The  population  of  Germany,  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  Turkey  amounted  to  140  millions,  while  that  of 
the  Entente  Powers  and  Belgium  exceeded  295  millions.  Even 
this  obvious  disparity  did  not  tell  the  whole  tale,  for  in  the  latter 
figure  were  not  included  the  teeming  millions  of  India  and  other 
subject  states  of  the  British  Empire  or  the  population  of  the  French 
colonies  or  of  Japan.  At  the  beginning  of  the  w^ar,  the  Teutonic 
Powers,  by  virtue  of  their  elaborate  military  preparedness,  could 
put  a  relatively  larger  number  of  men  in  the  field  than  their 
enemies ;  as  time  went  on,  however,  their  initial  advantage  would 
be  outweighed  and  obliterated  by  the  mere  weight  of  numbers 
which  the  Entente  Powers  could  train  and  dispatch  to  the  front. 

(2)  Economic  Resources.  Even  should  the  Allies  fail  to  over- 
whelm the  Central  Empires  by  sheer  weight  of  numbers,  it  was 
believed  that  the  failure  of  Germany's  economic  resources  would 
bestow  the  final  victory  upon  the  financially  invincible  coaHtion 
of  London  and  Paris.  To  the  student  of  finance  elaborate  statis- 
tical reviews  professed  to  prove  the  inevitable  bankruptcy  of 
Germany  and  the  financial  solidity  of  France  and  England.  Ger- 
man economists,  it  is  only  fair  to  remark,  published  similar  arrays 
of  figures  to  demonstrate  the  ability  of  Germany  to  endure  to  the 
end,  thanks  to  the  willingness  of  her  patriotic  citizens  to  invest  in 
the  government's  war  loans,  and  thanks  to  more  efficient  man- 
agement of  resources. 

(3)  Naval  Supremacy.  With  increasing  frequency  as  the  war 
progressed,  allusion  was  made  to  the  historic  parallel  between  the 
present  struggle  and  that  of  Napoleon  with  Britain's  sea  power. 
As  sea  power  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  had 


82  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

overcome  invincible  armies  then,  so  it  was  assumed  that  Eng- 
land's superdreadnoughts  would  overcome  Germany's  armies  in 
the  twentieth  century.  Command  of  the  seas  enabled  the  Allies 
to  utiHze  their  own  resources  to  the  full,  to  preserve  their  own 
trade,  to  *' capture"  German  trade,  and  to  institute  a  virtual 
blockade  of  Germany.  Germany's  attempt  to  break  the  block- 
ade by  means  of  submarines  was  still  in  its  incipient  stage  and  as 
yet  promised  to  achieve  little  except  to  anger  the  United  States 
and  other  neutral  Powers.  It  remained  to  be  seen  whether 
German  efficiency,  which  had  already  staved  off  a  food  crisis, 
could  so  wisely  regulate  the  economic  life  of  the  nation,  and  so 
advantageously  exploit  the  resources  of  Belgium,  Poland,  and 
Turkey,  that  the  British  navy  would  be  unable  to  reverse  the 
victories  of  German  armies. 

(4)  Prospect  of  Domestic  Disturbances.  In  measure  as  the 
Germans  lost  hope  of  Moslem  rebellions  in  India,  in  Egypt,  and 
in  Morocco,  and  of  popular  uprisings  against  the  British  and 
French  governments,  the  Allies  grew  more  optimistic  about  the 
chance  of  revolution  within  the  Teutonic  countries.  It  became 
known  that  a  group  of  ''Minority  Socialists"  in  Germany  was 
opposing  the  war  and  that  serious  mutinies  were  developing  among 
the  Czechoslovak  and  Jugoslav  subjects  of  Austria-Hungary. 
It  was  also  thought  that  the  Arabs  would  rebel  against  the  Turks, 
and  that  the  more  conservative  and  reasonable  elements  in  the 
Ottoman  Empire  would  become  disgusted  with  Enver  Pasha's 
Young  Turk  clique.  It  was  believed  that  appeals  to  the  cause  of 
^'liberty,  democracy,  and  humanity,"  against  Prussian  ''mili- 
tarism" and  Turkish  "barbarism"  would  gradually  enHst  the 
sympathy  of  the  "oppressed  masses"  in  the  Central  Powers  and 
Turkey.  Time  would  be  required  for  the  disillusionment  of  the 
Teutonic  people,  and  time  was  on  the  side  of  the  AlHes. 

(5)  Diplomacy.  Allied  diplomacy  was  supposed  to  be  more 
adroit  and  more  sympathetic  than  that  of  Germany.  The  Bal- 
kan states,  because  of  their  hereditary  enmity  towards  the  Otto- 
man Empire,  and  Italy,  because  of  her  traditional  rivalry  with 
Austria-Hungary,  could  readily  be  cultivated  by  the  superior 
Allied  diplomatists  and  induced  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  En- 
tente Powers.  With  such  an  accession  of  strength  and  resources 
to  the  AlHes,  the  defeat  of  Germany  would  be  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. 

Such  were  the  factors  which  inspired  Allied  optimism  in  the 
spring  of  191 5.  To  be  sure,  Germany  still  had  the  advantage  of 
waging  the  war  on  "interior"  lines  and  of  utilizing  more  effi- 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST      83 

ciently  and  economically  her  available  resources.  But  already 
France  and  Great  Britain  were  taking  steps,  if  not  to  unify  all 
their  military  efforts,  at  least  to  reform  and  strengthen  their  re- 
spective internal  administrations  with  a  view  to  securing  some 
part  of  the  "efficiency"  which  Germany  enjoyed.  In  France,  as 
early  as  August,  19 14,  a  non-partisan  war  cabinet  had  been 
formed  under  the  premiership  of  Rene  Viviani,  including  two 
Sociahsts  and  such  well-known  statesmen  as  Theophile  Delcasse, 
Alexandre  Millerand,  Aristide  Briand,  and  Alexandre  Ribot. 
In  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Asquith  constituted  a  "coalition  cabinet" 
in  May,  191 5,  including  twelve  Liberals,  eight  Unionists,  one 
Labor  member,  and  Lord  Kitchener ;  and  David  Lloyd  George, 
the  ablest  of  Mr.  Asquith's  co-laborers,  was  put  in  charge  of  a 
newly  created  ministry  of  munitions. 

In  the  summer  of  19 14,  Germany  had  taken  the  offensive 
against  France.  By  the  spring  of  191 5  it  seemed  to  France  and 
Great  Britain  that  the  time  had  arrived  for  an  offensive  on  their 
part.  The  Balkans  were  a  field  ripening  for  harvest.  From  the 
Balkans  might  be  inaugurated  that  final  offensive  which  would 
put  the  Teutonic  Powers  decisively  on  the  defensive.  To  the 
Balkans  the  Allies  turned  their  attention. 

THE  ATTACK  ON  THE   DARDANELLES 

The  key  to  the  Near  East  was  thought  to  be  the  Dardanelles, 
the  long,  narrow  straits  connecting  the  ^gean  and  the  Sea  of 
Marmora.  Once  through  the  Dardanelles,  a  victorious  AlHed 
fleet  would  have  Constantinople  at  its  mercy,  and  Turkey,  if  not 
wholly  eliminated  from  the  war,  would  at  the  very  least  be  cut  in 
two  and  gravely  crippled.  All  serious  danger  of  Ottoman  attacks 
on  Egypt,  Persia,  or  India  would  be  obviated.  The  Germans 
would  be  deprived  of  any  control  of  the  Bagdad  railway.  The 
Russian  armies  in  the  Caucasus  could  be  largely  withdrawn  and 
sent  to  reenforce  the  line  in  Poland.  Moreover,  the  straits  being 
opened,  Russia  would  at  last  find  a  free  outlet  for  her  huge  stores 
of  grain;  and  the  guns  and  ammunition  of  which  the  Russians 
were  in  sore  need  could  be  freely  and  cheaply  imported  by  way  of 
the  Dardanelles  and  the  Black  Sea,  as  fast  as  the  factories  of 
France,  England,  and  America  could  produce  them. 

The  moral  effect  of  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Allies 
would  be  tremendous.  Not  only  would  it  put  new  life  into  the 
forces  of  France,  Russia,  and  Great  Britain ;  not  only  would  it  be 
an  awe-inspiring  lesson  to  the  Mohammedan  millions  in  Egypt 


84  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

and  in  India ;  it  would  also,  by  increasing  the  probability  of  the 
Entente's  ultimate  victory,  hasten  the  decision  of  wavering  neu- 
tral nations  to  join  the  winning  side.  Italy  was  already  seeking 
important  concessions  from  Austria-Hungary  as  the  price  of  her 
continued  neutrality ;  the  Allies  would  presently  be  in  a  position 
to  make  her  better  offers  as  the  price  of  belligerency.  Most  im- 
portant of  all,  a  successful  attack  upon  the  Dardanelles  would 
probably  bring  the  Balkan  states  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the 
Entente.  Both  Greece  and  Rumania  had  Germanophile  kings 
and  mihtary  castes  that  were  under  the  spell  of  German  military 
prestige ;  in  both  countries,  however,  there  were  popular  parties 
already  favorably  disposed  to  the  AlHed  cause,  and  in  Greece, 
the  able  prime  minister,  Eleutherios  Venizelos,  was  known  to  be 
enthusiastically  pro- Ally ;  only  a  victory  at  the  Dardanelles  was 
needed  to  convince  Greece  and  Rumania  that  it  would  be  safe 
for  them  to  join  the  Entente.  Bulgaria,  smarting  under  the 
injuries  inflicted  upon  her  by  her  fellow  Balkan  states  in  the  war 
of  1 913  and  restless  under  her  wily  King  Ferdinand,  was  suspected 
of  secret  leanings  toward  the  Central  Empires  ^ ;  but  in  case  of 
an  Allied  victory  at  the  Dardanelles,  Bulgaria  would  not  dare  to 
oppose  the  Entente  Powers,  for  Greece,  Serbia,  Rumania,  and  the 
Allied  forces  at  Constantinople  could  completely  encircle  and 
crush  her ;  the  cession  to  her  of  Adrianople  and  Turkish  Thrace 
might  readily  resign  her  to  her  fate. 

Forcing  the  Dardanelles,  the  AUied  naval  authorities  had  every 
reason  to  believe,  would  be  a  difficult  and  hazardous  operation. 
To  be  sure,  a  British  squadron  had  accomplished  the  feat  in  1807  ; 
but  that  was  long  ago,  and  since  then  the  ineffective,  antiquated 
fortifications  in  the  straits  had  been  replaced  by  the  most  modern 
and  scientific  defensive  works;  expert  German  advisers  had  di- 
rected the  emplacement  of  formidable  batteries  to  command  the 
approaches  by  land  and  sea ;  and  14-inch  Krupp  guns  could  now 
be  trained  on  an  attacking  fleet.  But  if  the  hazard  was  great, 
the  stakes  to  be  won  were  still  greater. 

For  the  sake  of  a  momentous  victory  the  British  and  French 
risked  a  powerful  fleet  in  the  attack  on  the  Dardanelles.  During 
February,  191 5,  the  warships  which  had  been  watching  the  en- 
trance to  the  straits  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  were  reenforced 
by  new  arrivals,  until,  at  the  time  the  principal  assault  was  de- 

^  What  was  then  merely  suspected  was  subsequently  established  by  the  dis- 
closure of  a  secret  treaty  concluded  between  Bulgaria  and  Austria  in  September, 
19 14,  whereby  Bulgaria  agreed  not  to  enter  into  any  alliance  or  arrangement  with 
the  Entente  Powers  but  to  attack  Rumania,  if  Rumania,  on  her  part,  should  side 
with  the  Allies. 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR   EAST      85 

livered,  there  were  fifteen  British  battleships  under  command 
of  Vice- Admiral  DeRobeck  and  four  French  battleships  under 
Rear- Admiral  Guepratte.  Altogether  the  Franco-British  fleet 
mounted,  besides  the  immense  15-inch  guns  of  the  superdread- 
nought  Queen  Elizabeth,  almost  seventy  12-inch  guns  and  an  even 
greater  number  of  secondary  guns. 

On  February  19,  191 5,  the  Allied  fleet  began  a  heavy  bombard- 
ment of  the  forts  at  the  entrance  to  the  Dardanelles.  On  the  tip 
of  the  Gallipoli  peninsula,  constituting  the  northern  side  of  the 
entrance,  were  the  fortifications  of  Sedd-el-Bahr,  and  on  the 
southern  or  Asiatic  side,  two  and  three-eighths  miles  opposite, 
were  the  forts  of  Kum  Kale.  After  repeated  bombardments,  the 
big  guns  of  the  forts  were  put  out  of  action,  and,  although  landing 
parties  were  beaten  off  by  intrenched  Turks,  the  AlUed  battle- 
ships could  venture  early  in  March  into  the  lower  end  of  the  straits 
in  order  to  bombard  the  forts  situated  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles 
from  the  entrance.  These  forts,  Kilid  Bahr  on  the  western  shore 
and  Chanak  on  the  eastern  shore,  commanding  the  channel  where 
it  narrowed  to  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  width,  were  the 
cardinal  defenses  of  the  Dardanelles.  Here  the  German  advisers 
of  the  Turkish  government  had  planted  their  14-inch  Krupp  guns. 
The  forts  at  the  entrance  had  been  mere  outposts,  designed  to 
delay  rather  than  to  stop  the  invader.  The  decisive  battle  would 
be  the  battle  for  the  Narrows. 

By  March  18,  all  was  ready  for  the  supreme  naval  effort  which 
might  carry  the  Anglo-French  fleet  past  the  menacing  Narrows 
and  on  into  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  It  was  thought  that  the  guns 
at  Chanak  had  been  silenced  by  a  long-range  bombardment  con- 
ducted on  previous  days  from  the  Gulf  of  Saros  by  the  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  other  British  battleships.  Now  the  Allied  fleet 
steamed  toward  the  Narrows  and  aimed  their  fire  at  Kilid  Bahr. 
Suddenly  forts  which  were  supposed  to  have  been  dismantled 
blazed  forth  again,  and  floating  mines  were  let  loose  against  the 
assailants.  Three  large  shells  and  a  mine  simultaneously  struck 
the  French  ship  Bouvet,  which  immediately  sank  with  all  on  board. 
Another  mine  destroyed  the  British  ship  Irresistible.  And  a  third 
demolished  the  Ocean.  Meanwhile  Turkish  guns  from  shore 
batteries  had  set  the  Inflexible  on  fire,  opened  an  ugly  gap  in  the 
armor-plate  of  the  Gaulois,  and  inflicted  severe  punishment  on 
other  ships.  At  twihght  the  great  fleet  quietly  steamed  out  of  the 
straits,  followed  by  a  salvo  of  parting  shots  from  the  forts  which 
it  had  striven  to  annihilate.  Three  first-class  battleships  and 
more  than  two  thousand  men  had  been  sacrificed  in  vain.    The 


S6 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


naval  attack  on  the  Dardanelles  had  failed.  The  most  modern 
battleships  had  been  proved  helpless  against  up-to-date  land 
batteries. 

Instead  of  admitting  defeat  and  abandoning  the  Dardanelles 
campaign  entirely,  however,  the  Allies  decided  to  disembark 


Dardanelles  Campaign,  19 15 


troops  on  the  Gallipoli  peninsula  in  the  hope  that  a  land  attack 
might  succeed  where  the  navy  had  failed.  From  March  18  to 
April  25,  191 5,  the  fleet  passively  awaited  the  arrival  of  troops  on 
the  scene,  contenting  itself  with  preventing  the  Turks  from  re- 
pairing the  ruined  forts  at  Kum  Kale  and  Sedd-el-Bahr.  It  was 
a  long  wait,  fraught  with  serious  consequences.     The  Allies  at 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST      87 

first  hoped  they  could  prevail  upon  Greece  and  Bulgaria  to  fur- 
nish the  necessary  troops  for  the  land  attack  upon  the  Dardanelles 
and  Constantinople,  but  neither  Power  was  particularly  heartened 
by  the  Anglo-French  naval  failure,  and  both  Powers  made  seem- 
ingly exorbitant  demands  as  the  price  of  their  assistance.  Bul- 
garia would  not  content  herself  with  Adrianople  and  Thrace; 
she  must  also  obtain  Kavala  from  Greece  and  Macedonia  from 
Serbia.  Greece  would  not  be  satisfied  with  Smyrna  and  its  hin- 
terland ;  she  must  have  Cyprus,  all  the  ^gean  islands,  and  half 
of  Albania ;  and  the  idea  of  making  any  cessions  to  Bulgaria  was 
most  distasteful  to  her.  Were  the  AlHes  to  grant  all  the  requests 
of  Bulgaria,  they  would  antagonize  their  faithful  friend  Serbia ; 
were  they  fully  to  satisfy  Greek  ambitions,  they  would  outrage 
those  of  Italy,  for  Italy  actually  held  twelve  Aegean  islands  and 
had  definite  designs  on  Albania  and  parts  of  Asia  Minor.  Italy, 
as  a  Great  Power,  would  eventually  be  more  of  an  asset  to  the 
AlKes  than  Greece  or  Bulgaria,  and  Italy  must  not  be  ahenated. 
Despite  this  difficulty,  Venizelos,  the  Greek  premier,  would  have 
accepted  the  rather  vague  offer  of  Cyprus  and  other  territories 
and  would  have  ceded  Kavala  to  Bulgaria  and  given  invaluable 
mihtary  aid  to  the  AlHes  on  the  Gallipoli  peninsula,  had  not  King 
Constantine  sternly  forbidden  and  dismissed  him  from  the  min- 
istry. As  for  Bulgaria,  King  Ferdinand  dilly-dallied,  played 
politics  at  home  and  abroad,  and  sent  no  troops  to  Gallipoli. 

Unable  to  procure  troops  from  any  of  the  Balkan  states  for  a 
land  attack  upon  the  Dardanelles  and  Constantinople,  the  Allies 
proceeded  to  collect  an  army  of  their  own  as  best  they  could. 
General  Joffre,  still  fearful  lest  the  Germans  might  break  through 
his  own  lines,  would  spare  no  troops  from  the  Western  Front. 
Russia  had  no  means  of  getting  forces  to  the  Dardanelles.  Great 
Britain's  relatively  small  army  at  home  was  needed  to  offset  the 
wastage  in  France.  The  Allies  were  not  grasping  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  Dardanelles  enterprise;  they  were  most  unfortu- 
nately underestimating  the  results  both  of  success  and  of  failure. 
Either  they  should  have  abandoned  the  whole  undertaking  in 
March,  19 15,  or  they  should  have  moved  heaven  and  earth  to 
push  it  to  a  speedy  and  decisive  result.     They  did  neither. 

Late  in  April,  191 5,  an  Anglo-French  expeditionary  force  of 
120,000  men  under  the  command  of  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  was  at  last 
ready  for  a  land  attack  upon  the  Gallipoli  peninsula.  A  motley 
force  it  was.  There  were  a  few  British  regulars,  an  Australian 
division,  a  New  Zealand  division,  a  detachment  of  Indian  troops, 
a  division  of  British  Territorials,  and  some  French  colonials  and 


88  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

marines.  This  heterogeneous  aggregation,  amounting  in  all  to 
three  army  corps,  was  destined  to  attack  a  much  stronger  Turkish 
army,  commanded  by  a  skillful  German  general,  Liman  von  San- 
ders, and  ensconced  in  practically  impregnable  positions.  The 
long  delay  had  enabled  the  Turco- Germans  to  prepare  a  most 
redoubtable  defense. 

During  the  last  week  of  April,  the  expeditionary  forces  managed 
to  effect  landings  in  two  different  regions  of  the  GalHpoH  coast, 
one  at  Suvla  Bay  and  ''Anzac  Cove,"  ^  on  the  ^Egean  shore, 
north  and  across  the  peninsula  from  Kilid  Bahr,  and  the  other 
in  the  vicinity  of  Sedd-el-Bahr,  at  the  tip  of  the  peninsula.  From 
the  two  regions  it  was  planned  that  the  attackers  should  advance 
respectively  southeastwards  and  northwards,  join  forces,  and 
capture  Kilid  Bahr  from  the  rear.  On  the  tip  of  the  peninsula, 
in  a  three-day  battle.  May  6-8,  the  Anglo-French  line  made  a 
supreme  attempt  to  expel  the  Turks  from  Krithia.  By  dint  of 
desperate  infantry  charges,  covered  by  field  and  naval  artillery, 
the  AlHes  were  barely  able  to  advance  a  thousand  yards.  To 
their  intense  disappointment  and  chagrin  they  discovered  that 
the  terrain  had  been  carefully  prepared  by  expert  engineers  ;  wire 
entanglements,  concealed  trenches,  and  hidden  batteries  were 
encountered  at  every  turn.  Turkish  guns  on  the  heights  over- 
looking Krithia  commanded  the  whole  position  and  were  so  well 
protected  that  even  the  heavy  guns  of  the  British  battleships, 
which  assisted  in  the  attack,  could  not  disable  them.  In  the  other 
theater,  the  '' Anzacs"  fought  most  gallantly  and  heroically,  but, 
though  they  stood  their  ground  against  savage  Turkish  assaults, 
they  were  unable  to  make  any  appreciable  advance  to  the  south 
or  to  the  east.  Meanwhile,  the  fleet,  which  had  been  cooperating 
with  the  land  forces,  was  further  weakened  by  the  destruction  in 
May  of  three  more  battleships  —  the  Goliath,  Triumph,  and  Ma- 
jestic —  so  that  the  British  Admiralty,  thinking  discretion  the 
better  part  of  valor,  withdrew  the  Queen  Elizabeth  and  the  other 
large  battleships  from  the  iEgean.  Glory  was  added  to  the  Brit- 
ish navy  by  exploits  of  two  submarines  which  had  passed  the 
Narrows  and  penetrated  into  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  but  glory  was 
small  recompense  for  the  general  naval  failure  at  the  Dardanelles. 

On  June  4,  a  third  offensive  against  Krithia  was  ordered  by  Sir 
Ian  Hamilton.  Five  hundred  yards  were  gained  at  one  point, 
but  an  equal  distance  was  lost  at  another.     This  battle  marked 

*  Ari  Bumu,  called  "Anzac  Cove"  because  the  Australasians  landed  there,  the 
word  "Anzac"  being  composed  of  the  initials  of  "AustraUan  and  New  Zealand 
Army  Corps." 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST     89 

the  failure  of  the  Allies'  campaign  on  the  tip  of  GallipoK :  three 
bloody  battles  had  been  fought,  ammunition  had  been  wasted  in 
terrific  bombardments,  and  some  55,000  men  had  been  sacrificed ; 
yet  the  principal  Turkish  positions  remained  untaken  and  the 
way  to  KiHd  Bahr  blocked.  The  land  attack  on  the  Dardanelles 
was  an  even  more  costly  failure  than  the  naval  attack. 

From  February  to  June,  191 5,  the  AlHes  endeavored  by  a  coup 
at  the  Dardanelles  to  dominate  the  Near  East.  In  their  immedi- 
ate purposes  they  failed :  the  straits  were  still  closed ;  Constanti- 
nople was  still  a  Turkish  possession ;  Bulgaria  and  Greece  evinced 
fewer  signs  of  submitting  to  AlHed  arrangements  for  their  future 
welfare.  But  as  the  strain  between  Balkan  states  and  Entente 
Powers  increased,  Italy  perceived  an  opportunity  to  drive  a  hard 
bargain  with  the  AlKes.  The  latter,  with  Italian  aid,  might  over- 
awe the  Balkans;  and  thus  the  domination  of  the  Near  East 
would  be  realized,  if  not  through  conciliatory  diplomatic  negotia- 
tions direct  with  Bulgaria  and  Greece,  at  least  by  means  of  the 
might  and  prestige  of  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  Despite  the  failure- 
of  the  Allies  at  the  Dardanelles,  they  still  had  a  good  chance  of 
dominating  the  Near  East.  Nay  more,  if  France  and  Great 
Britain  stubbornly  maintained  the  defensive  on  the  Western 
Front,  and  Russia  pressed  her  offensive  in  Galicia,  the  AlHes  had 
a  capital  chance,  with  the  added  weight  of  Italy's  strength  and 
resources,  of  dominating  all  Europe. 

ITALY'S  ENTRY  INTO  THE  WAR 

The  optimism  of  the  Allies  in  the  spring  of  191 5  was  shared  by 
several  neutral  Powers,  notably  by  Italy.  The  failure  of  Ger- 
many to  crush  France  and  of  Austria-Hungary  to  defend  Gahcia 
against  Russian  invasion  served  in  Italy  to  reawaken  the  Irre- 
dentist agitation  for  the  annexation  of  ItaHan-speaking  districts 
of  the  Dual  Monarchy  and  to  quicken  imperiaHstic  ambitions 
for  a  share  of  Balkan  and  Near  Eastern  spoils.  Belligerent 
speeches  by  Italian  patriots  during  the  winter  and  early  spring, 
when  the  general  situation  seemed  most  favorable  to  the  Allies, 
had  stimulated  popular  enthusiasm  for  war  to  such  a  degree  in 
May,  191 5,  that  the  momentum  of  anti- Austrian  feeHng  carried 
Italy  into  the  war. 

From  the  Green  Book  published  by  the  Italian  government  to 
justify  its  participation  in  the  war,  from  the  information  given  out 
on  the  other  side  by  the  Teutonic  governments,  and  from  dis- 
closures made  by  the  revolutionary  Russian  government  in  No- 


90       •    A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

vember,  191 7,  it  is  now  possible  to  reconstruct  at  least  the  main 
outlines  of  the  diplomatic  manoeuvers  which  preceded  the  Austro- 
ItaHan  break.  A  secret  treaty,  it  will  be  recalled,  first  negotiated 
in  1882,  when  Italy  was  full  of  resentment  against  France  for 
seizing  Tunis,  renewed  in  1887,  in  189 1,  in  1903,  and  most  recently 
in  191 2,  bound  Italy  to  the  Central  Powers  in  the  defensive  Triple 
AlHance.  From  what  we  have  learned  of  the  provisions  of  this 
secret  treaty,  it  appears  that  if  either  or  both  of  her  allies,  ''with- 
out direct  provocation  on  their  part,"  should  be  attacked  by 
another  Power,  Italy  would  be  obliged  to  join  in  the  war  against 
the  attacking  Power.  If  either  ally  should  be  forced  to  declare 
defensive  war  against  a  Great  Power  which  menaced  its  security, 
the  other  members  of  the  Triple  AlHance  would  either  join  in  the 
war  or  '' maintain  benevolent  neutraHty  towards  their  ally." 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  in  August,  1914,  Italy  had 
remained  neutral,  announcing  that,  since  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary  were  engaged  in  an  offensive  war,  the  casus  foederis  did 
not  exist.  At  the  same  time  the  foreign  minister,  the  Germano- 
phile  Marquis  San  Giuliano,  had  construed  Italian  neutrality  as 
benevolent  toward  Germany.  As  the  war  progressed,  however, 
and  especially  after  the  death  of  San  Giuliano  in  December,  19 14, 
and  the  accession  to  the  foreign  office  of  Baron  Sidney  Sonnino, 
in  whose  ancestry  were  both  Jewish  and  British  elements,  the 
spirit  of  Italy's  neutrality  became  less  and  less  '' benevolent," 
and  the  Italian  government  began  to  accuse  Austria-Hungary 
of  violating  a  clause  of  the  Triple- AlHance  treaty  which  stipulated 
that  as  far  as  the  ''territorial  status  quo  in  the  East"  was  con- 
cerned, the  members  of  the  alliance  ''will  give  reciprocally  all 
information  calculated  to  enlighten  each  other  concerning  their 
own  intentions  and  those  of  other  Powers."  "Should,  however, 
the  case  arise  that  in  the  course  of  events  the  maintenance  of  the 
status  quo  in  the  territory  of  the  Balkans  or  of  the  Ottoman  coasts 
and  islands  in  the  Adriatic  or  the  yEgean  Sea  becomes  impossible, 
and  that,  either  in  consequence  of  the  action  of  a  third  Power,  or 
for  any  other  reason,  Austria-Hungary  or  Italy  should  be  obliged 
to  change  the  status  quo  for  their  part  by  a  temporary  or  a  perma- 
nent occupation,  such  occupation  would  take  place  only  after  pre- 
vious agreement  between  the  two  Powers,  which  would  have  to 
be  based  upon  the  principle  of  a  reciprocal  compensation  for  all 
territorial  or  other  advantages  that  either  of  them  might  acquire 
over  and  above  the  existing  status  quo,  and  would  have  to  satisfy 
the  interests  and  rightful  claims  of  both  parties."  This  clause 
had  been  invoked  by  Austria-Hungary  in  the  Turco-ItaHan  war 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST      91 

of  1911-1912  to  restrict  Italy's  operations  against  Turkey.  In 
December,  19 14,  it  was  invoked  by  Italy  to  justify  a  demand  for 
*' compensation"  for  the  advantages  which  the  attack  on  Serbia 
would  probably  give  the  Dual  Monarchy.  As  *' compensation" 
Italy  demanded  not  only  the  port  of  Avlona  on  the  Albanian 
coast,  whither  an  Italian  expedition  was  dispatched  late  in 
December,  19 14,  but  also  direct  cessions  of  Habsburg  territory 
to  Italy. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  government,  directed  since  January  by 
Baron  Burian,  naturally  objected  to  the  Italian  interpretation  of 
the  treaty,  yet  it  could  ill  afford,  in  view  of  the  Russian  advance  in 
Galicia,  to  alienate  Italy.  Negotiations  were  therefore  carried 
on,  but  with  the  utmost  procrastination  on  the  Austrian  side.  At 
length,  on  February  21, 191 5,  Italy  forbade  further  Austrian  opera- 
tions in  the  Balkans  until  an  agreement  should  have  been  reached 
as  to  compensations  ;  and  on  March  9,  Austria-Hungary  acceded 
in  principle  to  Italy's  threat.  The  German  government,  which 
had  consistently  urged  the  concihation  of  Italy  and  had  sent 
Prince  von  Biilow  to  urge  moderation  in  Italy,  offered  to  guar- 
antee the  execution  of  whatever  terms  should  be  agreed  upon. 

The  Itahan  demands  on  Austria-Hungary,  as  formulated  finally 
on  April  8,  191 5,  embraced  (i)  the  cession  of  Trentino  up  to  the 
boundary  of  181 1,  the  towns  of  Rovereto,  Trent,  and  Bozen; 
(2)  an  extension  of  the  eastern  Italian  frontier  along  the  Isonzo 
river  to  include  the  strong  positions  of  Tolmino,  Gorizia,  Gra- 
disca,  and  Monfalcone;  (3)  the  erection  of  Trieste  into  an 
autonomous  state ;  (4)  the  cession  of  several  Dalmatian  islands ; 
(5)  the  recognition  of  Italian  sovereignty  over  Avlona,  and  the 
declaration  of  Austria-Hungary's  disinterestedness  in  Albania 
and  in  the  twelve  ^Egean  islands.  Austria-Hungary  absolutely 
refused  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  demands,  and  modified  the 
first  by  reserving  Bozen.  Besides,  Austria-Hungary  was  averse 
from  making  any  cessions  to  Italy  until  the  end  of  the  war ;  and  she 
set  up  a  counter-demand  that  Italy  should  promise  perfect  neu- 
trality in  respect  of  herself  and  Germany  so  long  as  the  war  might 
last.  The  Italian  government,  on  its  side,  felt  that  it  had  been 
daUied  with  and  rebuffed  by  Austria  and  that  Germany's  ^'guar- 
antees "  were  not  very  impressive.  Germany  had  once  guaranteed 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  and  had  then  rebuked  Great  Britain 
for  minding  a  ''scrap  of  paper."  Germany  now  promised  to 
guarantee  cessions  of  Austrian  territory  at  the  conclusion  of 
hostihties,  but  if  she  should  be  defeated,  as  seemed  probable,  she 
would  be  in  no  position  to  fulfill  her  engagements,  and  if  by  chance 


92  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

she  should  win,  she  most  Hkely  would  laugh  at  Italy's  ''scrap 
of  paper." 

All  this  transpired  just  at  the  time  when  the  Entente  Powers 
were  conducting  their  Dardanelles  campaign  and  were  encoun- 
tering serious  difficulties  in  obtaining  support  from  Greece  and 
Bulgaria.  It  was  a  splendid  opportunity  for  ItaHan  diplomatists. 
The  latter  were  in  a  position  to  utilize  Allied  offers  to  raise  the 
offer  of  Austria,  and  then  to  utilize  Austrian  concessions  to  raise 
the  offers  of  the  Allies.  Italy  was  apparently  willing  to  sell  to 
the  highest  bidder,  and  the  Entente  could  bid  higher  than  the 
Teutonic  Powers.  The  Entente  Powers  could  promise  large 
sUces  of  Austria  to  Italy  without  hurting  themselves  in  the  least, 
and  in  the  Near  East,  in  the  existing  emergency,  they  could 
promise  enormous  imperialistic  profits.  The  fulfillment  of  the 
Entente's  promises  would  be  Kke  that  of  Germany's,  ''at  the 
conclusion  of  the  war,"  but  the  Entente  had  every  motive  for 
keeping  its  word  which  Germany  lacked,  and  the  Entente  was 
more  Hkely  in  the  long  run  to  win  the  war  than  were  the  Teutonic 
Powers.  The  more  protracted  were  the  Austro-Italian  negotia- 
tions, the  more  zealously  the  Allied  diplomatists  courted  Italy 
and  the  harder  was  the  bargain  which  Italy  drove  with  the  Allies. 

On  May  4,  191 5,  Italy  denounced  her  treaty  of  alliance  with 
Austria-Hungary.  Already,  on  April  26,  Italy  had  signed  a 
secret  agreement  at  London  with  representatives  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Russia,  whereby  she  was  to  receive  Trentino,  all 
southern  Tyrol  to  the  Brenner  Pass,  Trieste,  Gorizia,  and  Gra- 
disca,  the  provinces  of  Istria  and  Dalmatia,  and  all  the  Austrian 
islands  in  the  Adriatic.  Italy,  moreover,  was  to  annex  Avlona 
and  its  neighborhood  although  she  was  not  to  object  if  it  were 
later  decided  to  apportion  parts  of  Albania  to  Montenegro,  Serbia, 
and  Greece.  Besides,  Italy  was  to  strengthen  her  hold  on  Libya, 
and,  in  the  event  of  an  increase  of  French  and  British  dominion 
in  Africa  at  the  expense  of  Germany,  she  was  to  have  the  right 
of  enlarging  hers.  Finally,  Italy  was  to  retain  the  twelve  Greek- 
speaking  islands  in  the  JEgesm  and  to  secure  on  the  partition  of 
Turkey  a  share,  commensurate  with  those  of  France,  Great  Brit- 
ain, and  Russia,  in  the  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  and  more 
specifically  in  that  part  of  it  contiguous  to  the  Turkish  province 
of  Adalia.  By  an  additional  article,  "France,  England,  and 
Russia  obligate  themselves  to  support  Italy  in  her  desire  for  the 
non-admittance  of  the  Holy  See  to  any  kind  of  diplomatic  steps 
for  the  conclusion  of  peace  or  the  regulation  of  questions  arising 
from  the  present  war." 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST     93 


While  this  amazing  treaty  was  being  signed,  Italy  was  prepar- 
ing for  war.  Before  the  final  rupture,  Austria-Hungary,  unaware 
of  the  Entente  agreement,  made  a  last  attempt  to  purchase  Italy's 
neutrality.  According  to  a  statement  made  by  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg,  the  German  chancellor,  on  May  18,  the  Dual  Monarchy 


JERMANY  ^<^ 


■"  *^    A         Ur'     S  J,    U     S   T   Y    R    I    A     /' 

f  Mrnvt     '  ^■"^hlenzA         ^    Spittal        / 


/  /Trent   J 


offered:  (i)  The  Italian  part  of  Tyrol;  (2)  the  western  bank 
of  the  Isonzo,  ''in  so  far  as  the  population  is  purely  Italian,"  and 
the  town  of  Gradisca;  (3)  sovereignty  over  Avlona  and  a  free 
hand  in  Albania ;  (4)  special  privileges  for  ItaKan-speaking  sub- 
jects of  Austria-Hungary;  (5)  ''Trieste  to  be  made  an  imperial 


94  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

free  city,  with  an  administration  giving  an  Italian  character  to 
the  city,  and  with  an  Italian  university."  Moreover,  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  government  accepted  the  previous  ItaHan  demand 
that  the  cessions  should  be  made  as  soon  as  the  new  boundaries 
could  be  deHmited,  instead  of  awaiting  the  conclusion  of  the  war. 
Signor  Salandra,  the  Italian  premier,  was  already  committed  to 
the  Allies,  and  now,  having  tested  the  strength  of  the  war-spirit 
in  Italy  by  tentatively  resigning,  was  so  confident  of  popular  sup- 
port that  he  abruptly  broke  ofif  further  bargaining.  On  the 
evening  of  May  23,  191 5,  the  Italian  government  announced  that 
war  against  Austria-Hungary  would  begin  the  following  day. 

Italian  intervention  in  the  war  must  not  be  regarded  simply  as 
the  culmination  of  the  government's  haggling  over  patches  of  terri- 
tory. Italy  went  to  war  first  of  all  because  the  people  had  been 
aroused  by  wild  enthusiasm  for  a  war  of  emancipation  to  redeem 
the  ItaHan  populations  of  Trentino  and  Trieste  from  the  heredi- 
tary enemy  of  Italian  national  unity.  At  the  same  time  chauvin- 
istic journals  had  begun  to  preach  the  doctrine  that  Italy  as  a 
great  and  growing  Power,  as  the  modern  heir  to  ''the  grandeur 
that  was  Rome,"  must  estabHsh  an  hegemony  of  the  Adriatic 
and  reach  out  for  imperial  dominion  in  the  East.  While  chau- 
vinists were  frankly  urging  an  aggressive  war  for  colonial  ex- 
pansion, humanitarians  and  liberals  and  radicals  were  exhorting 
the  Italian  nation  to  join  in  the  defense  of  civilization,  democracy, 
and  liberty,  against  Austro-German  militaristic  imperialism. 
These  three  powerful  sentiments  —  anti-Austrian  nationalism, 
aggressive  imperiaHsm,  and  an ti- German  liberaHsm  —  enabled 
a  majority  of  the  Italian  people  to  accept  with  approval,  if 
not  with  jubilation,  the  result  of  the  diplomatic  manoeuvers. 
The  SociaHsts  objected ;  Giolitti  and  a  few  other  pro-German 
politicians  were  pacifistic ;  some  clericals  at  the  outset  were  op- 
posed to  war  with  Catholic  Austria.  The  opposition  was  com- 
posed of  numbers  too  few  and  of  elements  too  diverse  to  affect 
the  course  of  events. 

The  ItaHan  declaration  of  war,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
was  received  with  delight  in  France  and  England,  with  deep  re- 
sentment in  the  Teutonic  countries.  It  is  significant,  however, 
that  notwithstanding  its  abhorrence  of  Italy's  ''treachery,"  the 
German  government  did  not  declare  war  against  Italy  ^ ;  prob- 
ably Germany  thought  that  thereby  the  way  would  be  left  open 
for  Italy  in  the  future  to  desert  the  Entente  Powers  and  to  make 
a  separate  peace  with  Austria-Hungary.  As  a  precaution  against 
1  Italy,  however,  declared  war  against  Turkey  on  August  21,  191 5. 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST      95 

such  a  contingency,  the  Allies  prevailed  upon  Italy  to  adhere  on 
September  5,  191 5,  to  the  Pact  of  London ;  and  by  the  adherence 
of  Japan  on  October  19,  five  Great  Powers  —  Great  Britain, 
France,  Russia,  Italy,  and  Japan  —  were  then  bound  individually 
not  to  make  peace  except  in  concert. 

Italy's  entry  into  the  war  added  to  the  Allied  forces  a  field 
army  of  one  million  men  and  some  two  million  reservists,  under 
the  nominal  command  of  King  Victor  Emmanuel,  and  the  actual 
command  of  Count  Luigi  Cadorna,  and  a  navy  comprising  four 
dreadnoughts,  ten  older  battleships,  and  numerous  smaller  craft, 
under  the  direction  of  the  Duke  of  Abruzzi.  It  was  anticipated 
by  pubhcists  in  AlHed  countries  that  an  attack  of  the  large  Italian 
army  upon  Trentino  and  Trieste,  synchronizing  with  a  Serb  offen- 
sive in  Bosnia  and  with  a  big  Russian  thrust  from  Galicia,  would 
effectually  grind  Austria-Hungary  between  upper  and  nether 
millstones  and  would  speedily  compel  the  Dual  Monarchy  to  sue 
for  peace.  It  was  expected,  raoreover,  that  without  lessening 
the  efficacy  of  this  major  blow  Italy  would  have  troops  enough 
to  spare  to  reenforce  the  Allies  in  the  Near  East.  Italy  might 
help  the  Anglo-French  expedition  at  the  Dardanelles,  might  aid 
the  Serbians,  and  by  means  of  her  diplomatic  influence  at  Bu- 
charest might  prevail  upon  Rumania  to  enter  the  war  and  par- 
ticipate in  the  division  of  Habsburg  spoils. 

The  pubhcists  were  altogether  too  optimistic.  They  failed  to 
recognize  the  grave  handicaps  to  the  Allied  cause  inherent  both 
in  Italy's  military  position  and  in  the  nature  of  the  secret  agree- 
ment by  which  Italy's  services  had  been  secured.  The  secret 
agreement,  as  we  know,  promised  to  Italy  y^gean  islands  and 
territory  in  Asia  Minor  which  Greece  coveted,  and  Dalmatia, 
which  was  peopled  largely  by  Jugoslavs  and  to  which  for  national 
and  economic  reasons  Serbia  aspired.  The  result  was  embarrass- 
ing to  AlHed  diplomacy.  The  AlHes  were  already  having  trouble 
enough  with  King  Constantine  of  Greece,  and  in  taking  sides  with 
Italy  in  the  Graeco-Itahan  rivalry  they  were  strengthening  the 
pro- German  Greek  king  against  Venizelos,  the  pro- Ally  Greek 
statesman.  At  the  same  time,  they  were  endeavoring  to  satisfy 
Bulgarian  ambitions  by  obtaining  from  Serbia  the  cession  of 
Macedonia  to  Bulgaria,  but  now  that  Dalmatia  was  pledged  to 
Italy  the  AlHes  had  to  be  pretty  vague  in  promising  ''compensa- 
tions" to  Serbia  for  the  great  self-sacrifice  they  expected  from 
her.  The  Serbian  government  consequently  grew  more  intran- 
sigeant  about  ceding  territory  to  Bulgaria ;  Bulgaria  grew  more 
hostile  to  the  Allies;    and  the  Jugoslavs  of  southern  Austria- 


96 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


Hungary,  kinsfolk  of  the  Serbians,  gradually  feeling  that  they 
were  being  left  in  the  lurch  by  the  AlHes,  temporarily  evinced  an 
unseemly  loyalty  to  the  Dual  Monarchy.  Italy's  entry  into  the 
war  kept  Greece  neutral,  rendered  Bulgaria  hostile,  and  made 
Serbia  and  Montenegro  lukewarm.  As  for  Rumania,  secret 
negotiations  were  known  to  have  been  carried  on  between  that 
enterprising  state  and  Italy,  and  it  was  confidently  beheved  that 
Italy's  declaration  of  war  heralded  Rumania's.  As  we  shall 
see  in  the  next  chapter,  however,  Rumania's  conduct  in  191 5 
was  conditioned  less  by  Italy's  declaration  of  war  than  by  Russia's 
overwhelming  defeat.  With  flanks  exposed  to  Teutonic  attacks, 
Rumania  kept  the  peace. 

Temporary  diplomatic  embarrassment  would  not  have  signified 
much  to  the  Allies  had  effective  military  support  come  speedily 
from  the  Italians.  That  it  was  not  forthcoming  was  most  dis- 
concerting to  optimistic  publicists,  but  it  was  not  the  fault  of 
Italy  or  of  the  Italian  people.     It  was  the  fault  of  nature  and 


geography  and  of  the  strategic  frontier  which  Austria-Hungary 
had  cunningly  held  for  many  years  as  protection  against  a  possible 
Italian  attack.  The  boundary  between  Italy  and  Austria  lay 
across  precipitate  snow-clad  Alpine  peaks,  across  deep  narrow 
ravines,  across  mountain  torrents  and  swiftly  flowing  streams, 
and  all  the  highest  points  and  most  accessible  passes  were  on  the 
Austrian  side.  To  the  ItaKan  General  Staff  was  presented  the 
problem  of  conducting  a  campaign  on  one  of  the  most  difficult 


ALLIES  ATTEMPT  TO  DOMINATE  NEAR  EAST     97 

terrains  in  Europe.  The  Austrians  required  a  minimum  of  troops 
to  hold  positions  that  both  by  nature  and  by  artifice  were  admi- 
rably adapted  to  defense;  the  ItaHans  needed  a  maximum  of 
force  to  take  the  offensive.  This  geographical  difficulty  explains 
better  than  anything  else  the  seemingly  long  delay  of  the  Italians 
in  invading  Austria.  It  likewise  explains  the  unwilHngness  of 
the  Itahan  government  to  dispatch  troops  to  Serbia  or  to  the 
Dardanelles.  Under  the  circumstances,  Italy  undoubtedly  did 
the  best  she  could. 

General  Cadorna  concentrated  the  main  strength  of  his  armies 
at  the  railheads  along  the  southeastern  portion  of  the  Austro- 
Italian  frontier,  for  an  attack  in  force  on  positions  along  the  Isonzo 
river,  just  east  of  the  border ;  within  a  week  of  the  declaration 
of  war  the  Isonzo  had  been  reached,  but  there  the  Italians  were 
confronted  with  strongly  fortified  heights  east  of  the  river,  from 
Monte  Nero  in  the  north  to  Monfalcone  and  the  Carso  plateau 
on  the  coast.  All  summer  the  Italians  struggled  bravely  but 
vainly  to  master  these  heights.  Meanwhile,  against  the  middle 
sector  of  the  Austro-Italian  frontier,  which  is  simply  a  north- 
ward-bulging mountain-ridge,  General  Cadorna  sent  only  a  com- 
paratively thin  fine  of  troops,  with  instructions  to  guard  the  passes 
and  prevent  an  Austrian  counter-invasion.  The  third,  or  west- 
ern, sector  of  the  frontier  was  formed  by  the  irregular  triangle 
of  Trentino,  jutting  southward  into  Italy.  The  strong  popular 
sentiment  demanding  the  liberation  of  the  Italian  inhabitants 
of  Trentino,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  military  necessity  of 
forestalling  an  Austrian  offensive  from  the  commanding  heights 
of  the  district,  furnished  ample  justification  for  an  Italian  move- 
ment against  Trentino.  With  this  object,  one  ItaHan  army  pene- 
trated the  blunt  apex  of  the  triangle,  following  up  the  valley  of 
the  Adige  and  the  basin  of  Lake  Garda  towards  Rovereto,  while 
small  parties  of  Italian  mountaineers  assailed  the  mountain  passes 
along  both  sides  of  the  triangle,  threatening  Trent  from  the  east 
and  from  the  west.  It  was  slow  and  difficult  campaigning,  and 
great  or  decisive  results  were  not  speedily  manifest. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  191 5  the  Allies  endeavored  to  domi- 
nate the  Near  East.  Their  first  attempt  —  the  naval  attack  on 
the  Dardanelles  —  had  failed.  Then  their  efforts  to  obtain  mili- 
tary assistance  from  Greece  and  Bulgaria  had  been  fruitless. 
Their  next  attempt  —  the  land  attack  on  the  Gallipoh  peninsula 
—  had  netted  them  no  considerable  gain.  Then  they  had  pre- 
vailed upon  Italy  to  enter  the  war.     But  Italy  could  not  spare 


98  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

troops  from  her  own  difficult  frontiers  for  immediate  operations 
in  the  Near  East.  At  the  outset  the  domination  of  the  Near  East 
had  seemed  to  the  AlHes  a  relatively  easy,  minor  affair.  By  the 
summer  of  191 5  it  had  assumed  a  major  importance  but  had 
enormously  increased  in  difficulty.  Could  the  Allies  dominate 
the  Near  East?     There  was  still  a  chance. 

Perhaps,  though,  it  was  not  necessary  for  the  AlKes  to  domi- 
nate the  Near  East.  With  intense  pressure  exerted  simultaneously 
by  Russia  and  by  Italy  against  the  Dual  Monarchy,  the  quick- 
est and  best  way  of  defeating  Germany  might  he  in  the  collapse 
of  Austria-Hungary  rather  than  in  the  fate  of  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire and  the  Near  East.  To  that  end  it  was  imperative,  however, 
that  Russia  as  well  as  Italy  should  fight  victoriously.  The  sum- 
mer of  191 5  beheld  Russia  in  retreat.     It  was  a  critical  time. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RUSSIA  RETREATS 

MACKENSEN'S  DRIVE:   THE  AUSTRIAN  RECOVERY  OF 

GALICIA 

Up  to  the  end  of  April,  191 5,  the  Russian  situation  seemed 
most  promising  to  the  Allies.  The  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  had 
failed  to  invade  East  Prussia,  but  he  had  successfully  defended 
Warsaw  and  other  fortified  positions  in  Russian  Poland  against 
repeated  Austro-German  assaults,  while  in  Galicia  he  had  con- 
ducted a  brilliant  offensive.  The  Carpathian  passes  and  the 
fortresses  of  Lemberg,  Jaroslav,  and  Przemysl  were  in  his  posses- 
sion. Cracow  was  not  far  from  his  advanced  lines  along  the 
Biala  river.  All  this  had  been  achieved  by  the  Russians  during 
the  autumn  of  19 14  and  the  winter  of  1914-1915.  Surely, 
sufficient  time  had  elapsed  to  enable  the  full  utiHzation  of  Russia's 
vast  reserve  of  man-power,  and  the  Allies  naturally  expected 
decisive  results  in  the  campaign  to  be  waged  on  the  Eastern  Front 
during  the  summer  of  19 15.  The  ''miUtary  experts"  of  English 
and  French  journals  optimistically  debated  the  question  whether 
Silesia  or  Hungary  would  constitute  the  field  of  the  final  vic- 
tories. And  the  imminent  entry  of  Italy  into  the  war  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies  promised  to  complete  the  dissolution  of  the 
Dual  Monarchy,  so  gloriously  begun  by  Russian  prowess. 

In  a  way  the  campaign  of  191 5  on  the  Eastern  Front  was 
decisive,  but  it  was  decisive  in  a  manner  wholly  unforeseen  by 
the  AlHes.  In  the  Allies'  calculations,  too  much  emphasis  had 
been  put  upon  man-power  and  not  enough  upon  machine-power, 
too  much  importance  had  been  attached  to  numbers  and  not 
enough  to  efficiency.  In  an  earlier  chapter  ^  it  has  been  pointed 
out  that  the  Russians  were  fearfully  handicapped  by  a  clumsy, 
corrupt  government,  by  poor  means  of  communications,  and  by 
a  woeful  shortage  of  supplies,  and  that  the  Germans  not  only 
had  plentiful  supplies,   excellent  railways,   and  a  phenomenal 

1  See  above,  p.  54. 
99 


100        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

military  organization,  but  also  were  in  a  geographical  position 
which  permitted  them,  a^  soon  as  the  fighting  on  the  Western 
Front  assumed  the  character  of  trench- warfare,  to  transfer  large 
forces  with  dispatch  and  efficiency  to  the  Eastern  Front.  But, 
above  all,  Russia  was  predominantly  an  agricultural  country, 
while  Germany  was  a  veritable  hive  of  manufacturing  and  in- 
dustry; and  it  cannot  be  stated  too  insistently  that  the  Great 
War  was  a  war  of  machines,  that  a  highly  industrialized  State 
was  bound  to  enjoy  a  tremendous  advantage  when  pitted  against 
a  peasant-state. 

All  winter  long  the  factories  of  Germany  had  worked  day  and 
night,  turning  out  guns  and  howitzers  and  airplanes  and  rifles 
and  bombs  and  shells,  preparing  with  skill  and  ingenuity  for  a 
great  day  of  reckoning  with  the  Russians.  For  the  Russians 
no  such  preparedness  was  possible.  More  men  might  be  brought 
up,  but  what  could  mere  men  do  empty-handed?  Guns  and 
ammunition  could  be  suppHed  in  relatively  small  quantities  by 
Russian  factories,  and  Russia  geographically  was  almost  cut 
off  from  foreign  assistance:  during  the  winter  of  1914-1915  the 
EngHsh  and  French  could  ship  no  suppHes  to  Archangel  or  other 
White  Sea  ports  because  of  ice,  and  none  to  Black  Sea  ports 
because  of  the  Turks ;  supplies  from  Japan  and  the  United  States 
could  be  brought  only  over  sea  and  then  over  thousands  of 
miles  of  a  single  rickety  railway. 

So  it  is  exphcable  to  us  now,  though  it  then  amazed  and 
startled  the  Allies,  that  just  when  Italy  entered  the  war,  the 
Russian  armies,  instead  of  continuing  their  offensive,  were 
suddenly  put  on  the  defensive  and  were  compelled  hurriedly 
to  retreat  from  Galicia.  With  marvelous  secrecy  and  speed 
Austro-Hungarian  and  German  armies,  aggregating  at  least 
two  milHon  men,  had  been  concentrated  in  April,  191 5,  for 
a  prodigious  blow  in  Galicia.  In  Hungary  the  armies  of  General 
Boehm-Ermolli  and  General  von  Linsingen  were  ready  for  a 
new  assault  upon  the  Carpathian  passes.  In  Bukowina,  Gen- 
eral von  Pflanzer  was  prepared  to  resume  his  advance  into  south- 
eastern Galicia.  The  main  strength  of  the  Austro- German 
concentration,  however,  was  directed  against  the  advanced 
Russian  line  in  western  Galicia  along  the  Donajetz  and  Biala 
rivers  from  the  Vistula  through  Tarnow  to  Gorlice  and  the 
Carpathians :  here  were  the  Teutonic  armies  of  General  von 
Woyrsch,  the  Archduke  Joseph  Ferdinand,  and  General  von 
Mackensen,  the  guiding  genius  of  the  whole  Galician  movement. 
These  armies  were  provided  with  at  least   1500  heavy  guns, 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  lOl 

thousands  of  lighter  field-pieces,  and  unlimited  supplies  of  am- 
munition. 

By  sending  Linsingen  into  the  Carpathian  passes  to  threaten 
Stryj  and  the  railway  to  Lemberg,  Mackensen  kept  the  Russians 
in  uncertainty  as  to  the  point  at  which  the  principal  attack  was 
to  be  dehvered,  if  indeed  the  Russians  realized  at  all  the  grave 
danger  in  which  they  stood.  Then  quickly,  on  May  i,  191 5, 
the  main  Austro-German  attack  began  along  the  Biala  river 
with  an  artillery  bombardment  of  unprecedented  magnitude. 
The  opposing  Russian  trenches  were  blasted  out  of  existence, 
and  on  the  next  day  Mackensen  occupied  Gorlice  and  Tarnow. 
After  their  first  reverse  in  western  GaHcia,  the  Russians  fell 
back  some  twenty  miles  to  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Wisloka. 
From  this  line,  too,  despite  desperate  resistance,  they  were 
dislodged  on  May  7.  Dukla  Pass,  now  menaced  from  both 
sides,  was  abandoned,  and  large  bodies  of  fugitive  Russian  troops 
were  made  captive.  By  the  middle  of  May  the  Russians  were 
defending  the  line  of  the  San  in  central  Galicia. 

The  battle  of  the  San,  one  of  the  most  momentous  engage- 
ments of  the  war,  began  on  May  15  with  a  Russian  counter- 
attack, and  ended  two  days  later  with  the  Austro-Germans 
crossing  the  river  at  Jaroslav,  under  the  personal  observation 
of  the  German  Emperor.  Przemysl,  farther  south  on  the  San, 
held  out  until  June  2.  Meanwhile,  Linsingen,  striking  north 
through  the  Carpathians,  captured  Stryj  on  June  i  and  advanced 
across  the  Dniester.  Although  Linsingen  was  temporarily 
checked  by  General  Brussilov,  the  Austro-German  advance 
continued  to  make  headway.  On  June  20,  Mackensen  captured 
Rawaruska,  north  of  Lemberg.  Mackensen's  victory  at  Rawar- 
uska  rendered  Lemberg  untenable  and  compelled  the  Russians 
to  evacuate  the  strong  line  of  lakes,  river,  and  marshes  which 
constituted  the  ''Grodek  position,"  just  west  of  Lemberg.  On 
June  22  the  Austrians  under  General  Boehm-Ermolli  triumphantly 
reentered  the  city  which  the  Russians  had  taken  nine  months 
before.  The  fall  of  Lemberg  may  be  taken  as  the  crowning 
achievement  of  Mackensen's  great  drive.  The  Russians  had 
been  driven  out  of  the  Carpathian  passes  in  headlong  rout;' 
Tarnow,  Jaroslav,  Przemysl,  and  Lemberg  had  been  reconquered ; 
and  within  an  incredibly  brief  space  of  time  the  Russians  had 
been  all  but  expelled  from  Galicia  (they  still  held  a  strip  of  eastern 
Galicia,  including  Sokal,  Brody,  and  Tarnapol).  During 
June  alone  the  Teutonic  forces  captured  145,000  prisoners,  80 
heavy  guns,  and  268  machine  guns.     In  recognition  of  his  brilliant 


I02         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

success,  Mackensen  was  appointed  a  Field  Marshal.  Archduke 
Frederick,  commander-in-chief  of  the  Austrian  army,  was  simi- 
larly honored. 

Mackensen's  honors  were  deserved.  In  less  than  two  months 
he  had  undone  what  had  taken  the  Russians  nine  months  to  do. 
Moreover,  with  combined  German  and  Austrian  armies,  he  had 
succeeded  where  the  Austrians  alone  had  failed.  Thereby 
was  the  Austro-German  alUance  cemented.  The  Habsburg 
Emperor  received  back  his  "lost  province"  from  the  hands  of 
a  German  general,  and  thenceforth  the  Dual  Monarchy  was 
absolutely  dependent  upon  the  military  support  and  dictation 
of  the  German  General  Staff.  The  recovery  of  Galicia  was  of 
incalculable  benefit  to  the  Teutons  not  only  for  sentimental 
and  moral  reasons  but  also  for  economic  and  poHtical  reasons. 
The  one  substantial  conquest  of  the  Allies  was  lost,  and  with  it 
were  lost  oil-wells,  mines,  and  other  natural  resources  that 
were  greatly  needed  by  the  Germans;  with  it,  too,  was  lost 
any  immediate  chance  of  bringing  Rumania  into  the  war  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies.  The  Teutonic  recovery  of  Galicia  rendered 
Italy's  ultimate  success  in  Istria  and  Trentino  slower  and  more 
problematical;  at  the  same  time  it  guaranteed  the  security  of 
the  Hungarian  grain-fields  and  appeased  Count  Tisza,  the  Hun- 
garian premier.  It  was  to  have  far-reaching  effects  upon  the 
diplomatic  duel  then  proceeding  between  Teutons  and  Allies 
in  the  Balkans. 

But  the  most  important  benefit  which  the  resources  of  GaHcia 
conferred  immediately  upon  the  Teutons  was  strictly  military. 
It  exposed  Russian  Poland  to  an  attack  on  both  flanks.  Macken- 
sen's Drive  was  but  a  phase  of  a  grandiose  scheme  to  put  Russia 
entirely  out  of  the  war.  The  German  plan  of  campaign  in  Au- 
gust, 1914,  had  been  to  crush  France  and  then  to  turn  against 
Russia.  Failing  to  crush  France,  the  German  General  Staff 
in  April,  191 5,  had  altered  their  plan;  they  were  now  going  to 
overwhelm  Russia  and  then  turn  against  France. 


HINDENBURG'S  DRIVE:   THE   GERMAN  CONQUEST  OF 

POLAND 

As  soon  as  Mackensen  had  cleared  the  Russians  out  of  the 
greater  part  of  GaHcia,  Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg  launched 
a  gigantic  offensive  against  them  in  Poland.  ''Hindenburg's 
Drive,"  as  the  movement  was  popularly  called,  was  the  mightiest 
effort  yet  put  forth  in  any  theater  of  war.     Its  aim  was  obviously 


RUSSIA  RETREATS 


103 


(i)  to.  push  the  Russians  back  to  a  safe  distance  from  Galicia 
and  East  Prussia,  (2)  to  conquer  Russian  Poland,  which  the 
Teutonic  coalition  desired  for  miHtary,  economic,  and  poKtical 
reasons,  and  (3)  either  to  shatter  the  Russian  field  armies  com- 
pletely, or  to  drive  them  in  a  badly  battered  condition  to  a  strate- 
gically disadvantageous  position  where  they  would  be  obhged 
to  remain  comparatively  inactive. 


To  follow  the  course  of  Hindenburg's  Drive,  the  reader  must 
grasp  the  cardinal  significance  of  Poland's  geographical  situation 
and  of  her  railway  system.  Russian  Poland,  it  must  be 
remembered,  was  a  blunt  wedge  inserted  between  German  East 
Prussia  and  Austrian  Galicia;   and  just  as  the  Russians  at  the 


I04         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

beginning  of  the  war  had  recognized  that  they  could  not  safely 
advance  on  Berlin  until  the  Teutons  had  been  expelled  from 
East  Prussia  or  GaUcia  or  both,  so  now  Hindenburg  fully  appre- 
ciated the  fact  that  a  German  offensive  simultaneously  begun 
from  GaUcia  and  from  East  Prussia  would  imperil  the  whole 
Russian  position  in  Poland.  The  first  objectives  of  such  an 
offensive  would  be  the  side  of  a  westward-pointing  wedge  of  rail- 
ways —  the  most  important  means  of  communication  for  the 
Russian  armies  in  the  field.  Of  this  sharp  railway  wedge,  War- 
saw, the  capital  of  Russian  Poland,  was  the  apex ;  the  northern 
side  was  the  railway  running  northeast  from  Warsaw  through 
Bialystok,  Grodno,  Vilna,  and  Dvinsk  to  Petrograd ;  the  southern 
side,  the  railway  extending  southeast  from  Warsaw  through 
Ivangorod,  Lublin,  Cholm,  Kovel,  and  Rovno  to  Kiev.  Be- 
tween the  northern  and  southern  sides,  the  only  useful  railway 
links  behind  W^arsaw  were  (i)  from  Bialystok  to  Cholm,  by  way 
of  B rest-Li tovsk,  and  (2)  from  Vilna  to  Rovno. 

The  importance  of  defending  Warsaw  and  its  converging  rail- 
ways was  fully  realized  by  the  Russian  General  Staff.  The  city 
itself  was  strongly  fortified,  and  to  the  north  and  northeast  a 
line  of  fortresses  —  Novo  Georgievsk,  Pultusk,  Ostrolenka, 
and  Ossowietz  —  made  the  natural  line  of  the  Narew  river  an 
artificially  stronger  protection  against  any  attack  from  East 
Prussia  aimed  at  the  northern  side  of  the  railway-wedge ;  while 
to  the  southeast  the  broad  Hne  of  the  Vistula  with  its  heavy 
fortifications  at  Ivangorod  had  been  deemed  sufficiently  strong 
to  repel  a  flanking  movement  from  the  southwest.  It  was 
reassuring  that  Hindenburg  in  his  two  earher  offensives  ^  in 
Russian  Poland  had  been  unable  to  penetrate  beyond  these 
major  lines  of  defense. 

Late  in  June,  191 5,  just  after  the  fall  of  Lemberg  and  the  loss 
of  most  of  Galicia,  the  Russians  were  still  in  possession  of  the 
railway  salient  centering  in  Warsaw.  Their  long  battle-Hne 
stretched  from  ,Windau  on  the  Baltic  southward  in  front  of 
Kovno  and  Grodno ;  bent  westward  through  Ossowietz,  Lomza, 
Ostrolenka,  and  Przasnysz ;  curved  southward  again  in  front 
of  Pultusk,  Novo  Georgievsk,  and  Warsaw;  and  swept  south- 
east near  Radom,  Krasnik,  Zamosc,  Sokal,  Brody,  and  Tarnapol. 

But  already  the  blackest  kind  of  storm-clouds  were  gathering 

on  the  whole  Russian  horizon.     Mackensen's  Drive  in  Galicia 

had  served  to  divert  the  attention  and  chief  energies  of  the 

Russians  to  that  quarter,  and  Hindenburg  utilized  the  diversion 

^See  above,  pp.  50-52. 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  105 

to  strengthen  the  whole  Teutonic  battle-line  from  the  Baltic  to 
the  Vistula.  It  is  estimated  that,  including  Mackensen's  forces 
in  GaUcia,  not  less  than  forty-one  German  and  twenty-six  Aus- 
trian army  corps  were  disposed  for  the  crowning  stroke.  Russia 
could  produce  equal  numbers,  but  she  did  not  have  the  rifles, 
and  above  all  she  did  not  have  the  heavy  guns  and  the  shells. 
Hindenburg's  armies  were  equipped  for  sledge-hammer  blows. 

The  recovery  of  GaHcia  made  it  possible  for  Hindenburg  to 
direct  his  great  offensive  quite  differently  from  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  conducted  his  earHer  and  smaller  offensives  in 
Russian  Poland.  Warsaw  would  no  longer  have  to  be  assailed 
from  the  west;  it  could  now  be  flanked  from  the  southeast. 
Mackensen's  Drive  would  be  merged  into  Hindenburg's  Drive. 
In  fact,  in  the  last  week  of  June,  Field  Marshal  von  Mackensen, 
leaving  General  von  Pflanzer  to  complete  the  reconquest  of 
easternmost  Galicia,  turned  the  main  group  of  armies  under 
his  command  northward  and  crossed  the  border  into  Russian 
Poland.  By  the  middle  of  July  he  himself  had  captured  Zamosc 
and  advanced  to  within  ten  miles  of  Cholm  on  the  southern  side 
of  the  Polish  railway-wedge,  while  farther  west  his  lieutenant, 
the  Archduke  Joseph,  took  Krasnik  and  threatened  the  same 
railway  at  Lublin,  and  '  still  farther  west  another  lieutenant, 
General  von  Woyrsch,  obtained  Radom  and  drove  the  Russians 
back  on  their  fortress  of  Ivangorod. 

Simultaneously  the  northern  groups  of  German  armies  began 
to  press  the  Russians.  All  the  way  from  Novo  Georgievsk  to 
Kovno  the  pressure  was  hourly  intensified.  On  July  14,  a  Ger- 
man army  captured  the  town  of  Przasnysz  and  crossed  the  Narew 
near  Pultusk.  In  the  extreme  north,  Windau  fell  on  July  20 
and  the  Germans  advanced  toward  Riga.  At  the  south  it  was 
the  same  story.  On  July  28  Woyrsch  forced  the  passage  of  the 
Vistula  between  Warsaw  and  Ivangorod,  and  on  the  next  day 
Mackensen  cut  the  Warsaw-Kiev  railway  between  Lublin  and 
Cholm. 

The  simultaneous  attacks  on  the  northern  and  southern  sides 
of  the  Polish  rail  way- wedge,  and  the  interruption  of  rail  com- 
munication toward  the  southeast  rendered  the  position  of  the 
Russian  center  at  Warsaw  and  Ivangorod  extremely  precarious. 
At  any  moment  the  Teutonic  armies  might  bite  into  the  salient 
behind  Warsaw,  and  the  Russian  center  would  then  be  caught 
between  the  jaws  of  the  great  German  offensive.  The  Grand 
Duke  Nicholas,  realizing  this  peril,  chose  to  sacrifice  the  city 
of  Warsaw  and  the  fortress  of  Ivangorod.     With  feverish  haste 


io6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

guns  and  supplies  were  dragged  out  of  the  doomed  places,  and 
on  August  4  the  Russians  evacuated  both  Ivangorod  and  War- 
saw. On  the  morning  of  August  5,  191 5,  a  German  army  under 
the  command  of  Prince  Leopold  of  Bavaria  entered  the  PoHsh 
capital. 

The  fall  of  Warsaw  marked  the  success  of  the  first  phase  of 
Hindenburg's  Drive;  within  a  month  the  Russians  had  been 
forced  to  abandon  the  apex  and  western  sections  of  their  rail- 
way-wedge. An  isolated  garrison  at  Novo  Georgievsk,  it  is 
true,  held  out  for  a  fortnight  longer ;  but  the  main  body  of  the 
Russian  center  during  the  first  week  of  August  raced  back  madly 
toward  eastern  Poland.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  though  the 
bulk  of  the  Russian  field  army  would  be  entrapped.  But  the 
able  generalship  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  and  the  stubborn 
defense  of  Ossowietz,  which  guarded  the  northern  flank  of  the 
retreating  center,  enabled  the  Russians  to  preserve  some  form 
and  order  in  their  ranks. 

Despite  the  loss  of  Warsaw,  the  converging  point  of  the  main 
northern  and  southern  railways  in  Poland,  it  might  still  be  possible 
for  the  Russians  to  maintain  communications  between  the  major 
portions  of  these  railways  by  means  of  the  connecting  link  through 
Brest-Litovsk.  This,  in  fact,  was  the  purpose  of  the  secondary 
line  of  Russian  defense,  to  hold  the  railways  from  Petrograd 
and  Riga,  through  D vinsk,  Vilna  (protected  by  Kovno) ,  Grodno, 
Bialystok,  Brest-Litovsk,  Kovel,  and  Rovno,  to  Kiev.  If  the 
Russians  could  hold  this  line,  they  would  be  in  good  defensive 
position  from  which  in  course  of  time  they  might  start  a  successful 
counter-offensive.  This  line  the  Russians  were  holding  by  the 
middle  of  August. 

The  second  phase  of  Hindenburg's  Drive  consisted  of  efforts 
to  drive  the  Russians  from  their  secondary  line  before  they  had 
time  to  organize  its  defense.  In  the  far  north  of  the  long  battle- 
line  the  Teutonic  invaders  encountered  the  most  stubborn  resist- 
ance and,  though  they  reached  the  Diina  river,  they  were  unable 
to  capture  either  Dvinsk  or  Riga.  At  Riga  a  desperate  attempt 
to  land  a  marine  expedition  was  foiled  on  August  20  by  a  naval 
victory  of  the  Russians  over  the  Germans  in  the  Gulf.  But 
the  more  southern  parts  of  the  secondary  line  speedily  proved 
as  untenable  as  the  Warsaw  line. 

Already,  on  August  17,  the  Brest-Litovsk  line  was  threatened 
both  to  the  north  and  to  the  south.  To  the  north,  the  fortress  of 
Kovno,  inadequately  prepared  against  attack,  was  surrendered 
by  a  Russian  general  who  subsequently  was  brought  up  on  charges 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  107 

of  criminal  neglect  of  duty.  In  the  south,  the  line  was  menaced 
by  Mackensen's  continued  advance  east  of  Cholm  toward  Kovel. 
On  August  18  a  German  force  cut  the  railway  between  Bialystok 
and  Brest-Litovsk.  Ossowietz  fell  five  days  later.  Both  Bialy- 
stok and  Brest-Litovsk  were  evacuated  on  August  25,  and  Grodno 
on  September  2.  In  vain  the  Russians  launched  a  counter- 
offensive  near  Tarnapol,  in  GaKcia.  In  vain  was  their  desperate 
and  imprudent  defense  of  the  important  railway  junction  of 
Vilna.  Here,  while  they  heroically  held  in  check  the  German 
advance  from  Kovno,  other  German  armies  were  concentrating 
north,  south,  and  east.  Finally,  on  September  18,  the  Russians 
evacuated  Vilna  and  by  means  of  brilliant  holding  battles  man- 
aged to  extricate  themselves  with  the  greatest  difficulty  from  an 
impossible  position. 

With  the  fall  of  Vilna,  the  whole  secondary  line  of  Russian 
defense,  except  the  northernmost  sector  from  Riga  to  Dvinsk, 
was  in  Teutonic  hands.  By  the  first  of  October,  i9i5,Hinden- 
burg's  Drive  had  come  virtually  to  a  standstill,  and  the  Russians 
rested  from  their  exhausting  and  demorahzing  retreat.  The 
Russian  right  wing  now  held  the  Diina  river  from  Riga  to  Dvinsk 
and  the  lake  region  from  Dvinsk  to  Smorgon  (on  the  Vilna-Minsk 
railway) ;  the  center  maintained  an  almost  straight  north-and- 
south  line  from  Smorgon  to  the  Pripet  marshes  east  of  Pinsk; 
the  left  wing  was  fighting  for  possession  of  the  Lutsk-Dubno- 
Rovno  fortress-triangle  near  the  Galician  border  and  was  annoy- 
ing the  Austrians  in  the  vicinity  of  Tarnapol.  All  Poland, 
together  with  most  of  Courland  and  a  strip  of  Lithuania,  was  a 
Teutonic  conquest. 

REVIVAL  OF  POLITICAL  UNREST  IN  RUSSIA 

The  rapid  expulsion  of  the  Russian  armies  from  GaHcia  and 
Poland  produced  a  marked  effect  upon  the  political  situation 
in  Russia.  No  sooner  was  Mackensen's  Drive  well  under  way 
than  patriots  began  to  speak  out  against  the  incompetence  of 
the  military  leaders  and  the  inefficiency  and  corruption  of  the 
government;  and  as  Mackensen's  Drive  broadened  into  Hin- 
denburg's,  these  voices  of  protest  grew  more  numerous  and 
louder  and  angrier.  On  all  sides  demands  were  made  for  an 
early  assembhng  of  the  Duma  and  the  formation  of  a  really 
''representative"  national  government. 

An  autocracy,  such  as  the  Russian,  might  endure  through 
long  periods  of  piping  peace ;   it  might  even  acquire  new  vigor 


io8         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  lease  of  life  by  means  of  military  victory.  But  military 
defeat  was  almost  certain  to  discredit,  if  not  to  destroy,  it.  In 
the  last  war  in  which  Russia  had  been  engaged  —  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War  of  1 904-1 905  —  foreign  defeats  of  the  Tsar's 
troops  had  been  a  prelude  to  domestic  revolts  against  the  Tsar's 
government.  Now,  ten  years  later,  would  Russian  history 
repeat  itself?     That  was  the  question. 

In  one  important  respect  the  situation  in  1914-1915  was 
fundamentally  different  from  that  in  1 904-1 905.  The  Great 
War  had  a  significance  to  the  Russian  people  far  greater  than 
the  Russo-Japanese  War.  The  latter,  strictly  speaking,  had 
never  been  a  popular  war:  it  had  been  fought  against  ^'yellow 
men"  in  far-off  eastern  Siberia,  and  its  stakes  had  been  the 
Tsar's  imperialistic  domination  over  Korea  and  China ;  its  re- 
verses had  been  defeats  of  the  Tsar  rather  than  of  the  Russian 
people. 

The  Great  War,  on  the  other  hand,  was  distinctly  a  national 
war  which  appealed  alike  to  the  reason  and  to  the  imagination 
of  the  Russian  people :  it  was  being  fought  at  home  to  defend 
fellow-Slavic  states  from  Teutonic  imperialism;  and  in  the 
alliance  between  the  Tsar  and  the  democracies  of  France,  Italy, 
and  Great  Britain,  Russian  Hberals  perceived  a  means  of  working 
in  their  country  a  reformation  without  a  revolution.  Early 
in  the  war,  all  the  political  parties  of  Russia,  save  only  an  extreme 
group  of  Social  Democrats,  had  pledged  unanimous  and  cordial 
support  to  the  Tsar's  government. 

Nevertheless  no  country  can  suffer  as  Russia  suffered  from 
May  to  September,  191 5,  without  a  strong  reaction.  The  crowds 
of  homeless  peasants  pouring  eastwards  along  every  highway, 
the  troops  tattered  and  torn  and  driven  backwards  frequently 
in  confusion,  the  endless  stream  of  wounded,  were  most  oppressive 
reminders  of  a  huge  national  calamity.  The  mere  problem  of 
relief,  to  say  nothing  of  the  problem  of  preparing  new  defensive 
positions,  was  enough  to  strain  the  capacity  of  the  country  to 
the  utmost.  The  refugees  alone  by  the  first  of  October  were 
estimated  at  two  millions.  These  men  had  enormous  distances 
to  travel  on  foot,  and  shelter  had  to  be  provided  along  the  roads 
as  well  as  reHef  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  Of  the  armed  forces 
the  casualties  were  appalling.  It  was  estimated  in  October, 
191 5,  that  to  date  Russia  had  lost  half  a  million  men  killed,  a 
million  wounded,  and  another  million  in  prisoners,  —  a  frightful 
loss  exceeding  two  and  a  half  milHon  able-bodied  young  Russians. 
Worse  than  all  else,  there  was  some  justification  for  the  popular 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  109 

impression  that  much  of  this  loss  and  most  of  its  attendant 
miseries  might  have  been  prevented  if  the  Tsar's  ministers  and 
agents  had  been  as  soUcitous  for  their  country's  welfare  as  for 
court-favor  and  their  own  pockets. 

Already  in  June,  following  Mackensen's  Drive,  but  before 
the  full  extent  of  the  Russian  disaster  was  manifest,  Premier 
Goremykin  had  so  far  yielded  to  popular  criticism  of  the  govern- 
ment as  to  dismiss  several  officials  of  proved  inefficiency  or 
corruption.  Makarov,  the  unpopular  minister  of  the  interior, 
was  succeeded  by  the  more  Hberal  Prince  Cherbatov ;  and  Gen- 
eral Soukhomlinov,  the  boastful  and  thoroughly  dishonest  min- 
ister of  war,  was  compelled  to  make  way  for  General  Poh- 
vanov.  These  and  other  changes  were  in  the  right  direction, 
but  reform  was  not  drastic  enough  to  satisfy  popular  critics. 
And  as  Hindenburg's  Drive  succeeded  Mackensen's,  popular 
unrest  and  criticism  increased. 

On  August  I,  191 5,  the  anniversary  of  the  outbreak  of  war, 
the  Duma  was  convened  to  listen  to  speeches,  at  once  inspiriting 
and  apologetic,  by  Rodzianko,  president  of  the  Duma,  and  by 
Premier  Goremykin.  In  the  eloquent  opening  address  of 
Rodzianko,  two  themes  were  dominant.  First,  he  gave  voice 
to  the  tremendous  loyalty  and  patriotism  of  the  Russian  people, 
and  expressed  his  belief  that  'Hhe  steel  breasts  of  her  sons" 
would  unfailingly  protect  ^' Holy  Russia"  from  the  enemy. 
However,  and  this  was  his  second  theme,  the  government  must 
collaborate  with  the  people  in  a  more  democratic  spirit.  "A 
change  of  the  spirit  itself  and  of  the  administration  of  the  exist- 
ing system  is  necessary."  The  premier  seemed  to  meet  Rod- 
zianko halfway,  for  he  declared  it  his  policy  ^'to  unite  in  a  single 
institution  and  materially  to  extend  the  participation  of  the 
representatives  of  legislative  assembHes,  pubHc  offices,  and 
Russian  industry,  in  the  business  of  supplying  the  army  with 
munitions  and  in  the  coordination  of  measures  for  the  feeding 
of  the  army  and  the  country." 

The  central  feature  of  Premier  Goremykin's  plan  to  enlist 
the  cooperation  of  the  nation  by  the  creation  of  advisory  boards 
including  experts  and  delegates  from  the  towns,  from  the  zem- 
stvos,  from  the  Duma,  and  from  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  to 
assist  the  ministers  of  war,  commerce,  communications,  and 
agriculture,  was  readily  assented  to  by  the  Duma.  The  Pre- 
mier's concessions  were  not  enough,  however,  to  satisfy  the  more 
democratic  of  the  nation's  representatives,  who  demanded  that 
the  ministry  itself  should  be  reorganized  so  as  to  cooperate 


no         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

more  closely  with  the  Duma.  To  this  course  the  liberals  were 
impelled  not  so  much  by  the  actual  German  victories  as  by 
amazing  revelations  of  the  corruption  in  Russian  officialdom. 
It  became  known  that  German  influence  was  at  work  in  Petrograd 
offices  as  well  as  on  Polish  battlefields.  It  was  astounding 
that  various  Russian  banks  under  German  manipulation  were 
endeavoring  to  ''corner"  certain  commodities  and  hamper  the 
manufacture  of  munitions  for  the  Russian  army,  that  the  Putilov 
Armament  Company,  half  of  whose  stock  was  controlled  by 
Krupp,  was  dismissing  workmen  or  limiting  them  to  a  five-hour 
day,  and  that  the  Russian  ministry  was  taking  no  effective 
steps  against  these  abuses. 

Late  in  August,  191 5,  the  leaders  of  the  moderate  groups  in 
the  Duma  finally  agreed  upon  a  program  of  reforms;  the 
first  week  in  September  witnessed  the  organization  of  a  hloc, 
including  all  the  groups  of  the  Duma  with  the  exception  of  the 
Reactionaries  at  one  extreme  and  the  Social  Democrats  at  the 
other,  on  a  platform  calHng  for  (i)  the  reconstruction  of  the 
ministry  with  a  view  to  the  appointment  of  persons  able  to  com- 
mand the  nation's  confidence,  (2)  the  adoption  of  a  governmental 
program  calculated  to  reconcile  discontented  nationaHties  and 
concihate  aggrieved  classes,  (3)  the  reform  of  local  adminis- 
tration, (4)  the  punishment  of  criminally  inefficient  commanders 
and  officials,  and  (5)  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war.  Pro- 
fessor Paul  Milyukov,  the  leader  of  the  group  of  Constitutional 
Democrats,  became  the  spokesman  of  the  reform  movement. 

Here  obviously  was  the  golden  opportunity  for  the  Tsar  to 
adopt  a  moderate  program  of  political  reform  and  thereby 
to  heighten  the  loyalty  to  his  person  and  the  enthusiasm  for 
the  war  which,  despite  the  most  painful  mihtary  reverses,  still 
characterized  the  Russian  body-politic.  For  a  brief  moment  it 
appeared  as  though  the  Tsar  understood  the  situation  and  was 
resolved  to  act  upon  it.  On  September  5,  191 5,  in  the  darkest 
hour  of  Russian  defeat,  the  Tsar  signed  an  army  order  announcing 
that  he  himself  had  taken  supreme  command.^  ''To-day  I  have 
taken  supreme  command  of  all  the  forces  of  the  sea  and  land 
armies  operating  in  the  theater  of  war.  With  firm  faith  in  the 
clemency  of  God,  with  unshakable  assurance  in  final  victory, 
we  shall  fulfill  our  sacred  duty  to  defend  our  country  to  the  last. 

1  The  order  transferred  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  to  the  Caucasus.  Subse- 
quently the  action  of  the  Tsar  appeared  in  a  less  favorable  light.  The  Grand  Duke 
Nicholas  was  a  very  able  general,  and  his  removal  was  later  interpreted  as  the 
result  less  of  the  Tsar's  patriotic  initiative  than  of  a  sinister  court  intrigue.  See 
below,  p.  226. 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  iii 

We  will  not  dishonor  the  Russian  land."  By  the  appointment 
of  the  popular  General  Alexeiev  as  chief  of  staff,  the  new  gener- 
alissimo gave  sign  to  the  whole  Russian  people  that  so  far  as  the 
Autocrat  himself  was  concerned  German  intrigue  and  Russian 
corruption  would  not  prevail  against  his  purpose  to  wage  the 
war  to  a  triumphant  end. 

As  the  event  proved,  the  Tsar  understood  only  the  mihtary 
aspect  of  the  difficult  situation  in  which  Russia  found  herself. 
The  German  Drive  speedily  came  to  a  standstill,  and  the  Tsar, 
taking  undeserved  credit  to  himself  for  this  surcease  of  imminent 
miHtary  danger,  promptly  shut  his  ears  to  the  reforming  clamor 
in  the  Duma  and  throughout  the  country.  The  reactionaries 
breathed  more  freely,  and  a  certain  sullenness  possessed  the 
souls  of  the  Hberals.  It  was  a  crisis  whose  distant  effects  no 
foreigner  and  hardly  any  Russian  fully  perceived. 

Scarcely  had  the  progressive  hloc  formulated  its  program  of 
reform  when  an  imperial  ukase  was  issued,  September  i6,  un- 
expectedly proroguing  the  Duma.  Protests  were  voiced  through- 
out the  country,  especially  in  Moscow,  where  a  congress  of  the 
zemstvos  was  in  session,  against  this  arbitrary  exercise  of  the 
Tsar's  prerogative.  Yet  this  was  only  the  beginning  of  a  pro- 
nounced pohtical  change  in  Russia,  guided  by  the  autocrat 
and  his  ministers,  not  toward  reform  and  democracy,  but 
straight  in  the  direction  of  unqualified  reaction.  Early  in 
October  Prince  Cherbatov  was  superseded  as  minister  of  the 
interior  by  Alexis  Khvostov,  a  member  of  the  party  of  the  Ex- 
treme Right  in  the  Duma,  who  declared  emphatically  and  re- 
peatedly that  "we  must  strengthen  the  machinery  of  authority." 
One  ministerial  change  followed  another  during  the  autumn  and 
winter,  always  more  reactionary,  until  on  February  i,  191 6, 
the  very  acme  of  reaction  was  reached  with  the  retirement  of 
the  octogenarian  premier  Goremykin  and  the  succession  to  the 
chief  ministry  of  Boris  Stiirmer,  who  was  known  to  be  not  only 
an  ultra-conservative  and  an  oppressive  landlord  but  a  man  of 
German  descent,  and  who  besides  was  reputed  to  be  pro-German 
in  his  personal  sympathies. 

Around  the  German  conquest  of  Galicia  and  Poland  in  the 
summer  of  191 5,  and  even  more  around  the  unwillingness  or 
inability  of  the  Tsar's  government  in  the  ensuing  autumn  and 
winter  fully  to  understand  the  resulting  feehngs  and  emotions 
of  the  Russian  people,  were  gradually  gathering  storm-clouds 
of  popular  misery  and  popular  discontent.  Russian  losses  were 
already  greater  than  those  of  any  other  country;    Russians 


112         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

had  bled  and  died  more  numerously  than  any  other  nationality. 
Yet  what  had  it  all  signified  ?  The  loss  of  Russia's  one  conquest 
and  the  loss  of  her  richest  provinces,  the  adjournment  of  the 
Duma,  and  the  rise  of  Boris  Stiirmer !  The  great  bulk  of  the 
Russian  people  were  still  enthusiastic  about  the  war  and  still 
resolved  to  pour  out  treasure  and  blood  to  win  it.  But  they 
were  coming  to  care  less  for  the  winning  of  provinces  than  for 
the  winning  of  political  and  social  freedom.  They  still  respected 
the  Tsar,  but  against  his  corrupt  and  inefficient  reactionary 
ministers  they  were  growing  bitter.  The  storm-cloud  of  revolu- 
tion, no  bigger  in  September,  191 5,  than  a  man's  hand,  loomed 
gradually  larger  throughout  1916,  until  by  the  end  of  the  year 
it  promised  to  overspread  the  whole  Russian  sky. 

Revolution  in  Russia  would  be  bound  to  have  marked  effects 
upon  the  fortunes  of  the  Great  War.  As  yet,  however,  in  the 
autumn  of  191 5  revolution  was  not  menacing,  and  in  AlHed 
countries  fears  of  Russian  defection  were  not  expressed.  It 
was  generally  recognized  that  for  some  time  to  come  Russia 
would  be  quite  unable  to  recover  Poland,  much  less  to  threaten 
Vienna  or  Berhn.  The  *' tidal  wave"  was  stayed.  But  the 
Allies  did  not  yet  despair  of  ultimate  aid  from  Russia.  Russia 
was  not  crushed,  and  even  if  the  Germans  should  overwhelm 
her  and  precipitate  revolution  and  chaos  in  Eastern  Europe, 
they  would  still  have  to  deal  on  their  Western  Front  with  France 
and  Great  Britain. 

FAILURE  OF  THE  ALLIES  TO  RELIEVE  RUSSIA 

At  the  Marne,  in  September,  19 14,  France  and  Great  Britain 
had  administered  a  decisive  defeat  to  Germany.  In  May,  191 5, 
Italy  had  entered  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Entente  Powers. 
In  view  of  these  facts,  it  may  seem  strange  that  from  May  to 
September,  191 5,  Germany  should  have  been  able  to  win  a  series 
of  spectacular  victories  in  Russia,  driving  her  Eastern  enemy 
out  of  Galicia  and  Poland  and  out  of  a  large  section  of  Lithuania, 
and  threatening  Russia's  internal  order  and  security. 

The  story  of  German  successes  against  Russia  could  doubtless 
have  been  differently  told  if  in  191 5  the  Italians  had  been  able 
to  dispatch  large  forces  to  the  Balkans  and  simultaneously  to 
capture  Trieste  and  thence  march  towards  Vienna.  In  that 
case  Rumania  would  probably  have  entered  the  war  immedi- 
ately on  the  Allied  side ;  and  Germany,  instead  of  being  free  to 
chastise  Russia,  would  have  been  obliged  to  come  to  the  assist- 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  113 

ance  of  her  own  ally,  Austria-Hungary,  encompassed  on  three 
sides  by  enemies  and  struggling  for  her  very  existence.  But 
the  Italians,  as  we  have  seen  in  an  earlier  chapter,^  were  held 
back  by  a  most  difficult  terrain,  and  they  did  well  in  191 5  to 
reach  the  Isonzo :  they  could  spare  no  troops  for  a  Balkan  ex- 
pedition and  they  not  so  much  as  threatened  Trieste.  Under 
the  actual  circumstances,  Rumania  preserved  a  troubled  neu- 
trality; Austria-Hungary  was  not  seriously  menaced  on  any 
side ;  and  Germany  could  devote  her  energies  to  offensive,  rather 
than  defensive,  war. 

But,  even  so,  the  fate  of  Russia  was  not  wholly  dependent 
on  an  ItaHan  drive.  On  a  600-mile  Western  Front  were  French 
and  British  veterans  of  the  victories  of  the  Marne,  the  Aisne, 
and  Flanders,  and  a  forward  movement  of  these  valorous  hosts 
in  191 5  might  serve  independently  to  bring  respite  and  rehef 
to  hard-pressed  Russians  on  the  Eastern  Front.  This  had  been 
the  chief  of  AlHed  calculations,  that  Germany,  compelled  to 
stand  on  the  defensive  in  the  West,  would  be  unable  to  take  the 
offensive  in  the  East. 

Such  calculations  were  purely  academic.  Despite  a  lessening 
of  German  numbers  on  the  Western  Front,  a  great  AlKed  advance 
in  France  and  Belgium  failed  to  materiahze  in  191 5.  Germany 
experienced  no  special  difficulty  in  holding  her  own  in  the  West 
at  the  very  time  when  she  was  more  than  holding  her  own  in 
the  East.  Why  the  Western  Allies  failed  to  relieve  Russia  re- 
quires some  explanation. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  by  the  end  of  19 14  the  fighting  on  the 
Western  Front  had  assumed  the  character  of  trench  warfare. 
AlHes  and  Germans  faced  each  other  in  parallel  ditches,  from 
thirty  to  two  hundred  yards  apart,  extending  continuously 
from  the  Alps  to  the  North  Sea.  Behind  the  Allied  front  there 
were  second  and  third  rows  of  trenches,  and  further  positions 
at  intervals  in  the  rear.  But  the  Germans  had  these,  and  some- 
thing more.  Ever  since  their  defeat  at  the  Marne  and  their 
failure  to  force  France  to  a  speedy  peace,  they  had  expended 
immense  ingenuity  and  labor  in  preparing  defensive  positions 
whereby  with  the  least  possible  effort  they  might  be  enabled  to 
retain  permanently  their  first  conquests  —  Belgium  and  the 
rich  iron  and  coal  regions  of  northern  France.  The  ramifications 
of  their  trenches  were  endless,  and  great  redoubts,  almost  flush 
with  the  ground,  consisting  of  a  labyrinth  of  trenches  and  ma- 
chine-gun "nests,"  studded  their  front.     In  natural  defensive 

1  See  above,  p.  96. 

I 


114         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

areas,  such  as  the  mining  districts  about  Lille  and  in  Lorraine, 
every  acre  contained  a  fort.  ''The  German  lines  in  the  West 
were  a  fortress  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  The  day  of 
manoeuver  battles  had  for  the  moment  gone.  There  was  no 
question  of  envelopment  or  outflanking,  for  there  were  no  flanks 
to  turn.  The  slow  methods  of  fortress  warfare  —  sap  and 
mine,  battery  and  assault  —  were  all  that  remained  to  the 
offensive."  ^ 

In  191 5  the  burden  of  the  offensive  was  on  the  Allies.  They 
knew  it,  and  throughout  the  preceding  winter  they  had  been 
planning  for  it.  Even  before  the  Germans  had  begun  their 
great  drives  against  Russia,  the  Allies  undertook  to  follow  up 
their  own  victories  of  the  autumn  of  19 14  by  "breaking  through" 
the  formidable  new  German  trench-hnes. 

The  efforts  of  the  AlUes  on  the  Western  Front  will  be  more 
readily  evaluated  if  their  front  is  considered  as  comprising  three 
sectors :  (i)  the  northern  sector,  extending  over  a  hundred  miles 
from  the  Belgian  town  of  Nieuport,  east  of  Ypres  and  Armen- 
tieres,  west  of  Lille,  east  of  Arras,  west  of  Peronne,  east  of  Roye, 
and  through  Noyon  to  a  point  on  the  Gise  river  a  few  miles 
north  of  Compiegne,  and  held  by  Belgian  and  French  troops  from 
Nieuport  to  Ypres,  by  British  from  Ypres  to  Bethune,  and  by 
French  alone  from  Bethune  to  the  Oise ;  (2)  the  central  sector, 
exclusively  French,  from  the  Oise  to  Soissons  on  the  Aisne,  fol- 
lowing the  northern  bank  of  the  Aisne  for  perhaps  twenty  miles, 
then  swinging  southeast  through  the  Champagne  country, 
northeast  of  Rheims,  through  Perthes  across  the  forested  ridge 
of  the  Argonne  to  the  Meuse  River,  just  northwest  of  Verdun ; 
(3)  the  eastern  sector,  swinging  around  the  great  fortifications 
of  Verdun,  bending  back  sharply  to  the  Meuse  at  St.  Mihiel 
(about  ten  miles  south  of  Verdun),  turning  east  again  from  St. 
Mihiel  to  strike  the  Moselle  river  at  a  point  near  the  Lorraine 
frontier,  thence  extending  southeast  and  crossing  over  the  crest 
of  the  Vosgeg  into  Upper  Alsace,  where  Thann  was  still  retained 
by  the  French. 

Early  in  191 5  attempts  were  made  by  the  Allies  in  each  of 
these  sectors  to  carry  opposing  German  lines.  In  the  central 
sector,  the  French  managed  to  capture  Perthes  and  fought 
valiantly  but  vainly  in  the  vicinity  of  Soissons.  In  the  eastern 
sector,  the  French  made  a  desperate  effort  to  wipe  out  the  St. 
Mihiel  salient :  small  gains  were  secured  on  the  northern  and 
southern  sides  of  the  wedge,  but  the  main  objective  was  not 

*  Nelson^ s  History  of  the  War,  Vol.  x,  p.  107. 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  115 

achieved.  The  most  ambitious  offensive,  however,  was  under- 
taken in  the  northern  sector  by  the  British,  who  by  this  time 
numbered  well-nigh  half  a  milHon.  Early  in  the  morning  of 
March  10,  191 5,  a  terrific  bombardment  of  the  German  trenches 
west  of  Neuve  Chapelle  (about  two-thirds  of  the  distance  from 
Arras  to  Armentieres)  and  of  the  village  itself  prepared  the  way 
for  an  infantry  attack.  Before  noon  the  village  of  Neuve  Cha- 
pelle, now  a  smouldering  heap  of  ruins,  was  completely  in  British 
possession.  In  the  afternoon,  however,  and  on  the  two  succeed- 
ing days,  the  British  were  unable  to  push  their  advantage  with 
energy ;  the  Germans  were  allowed  to  recover  from  the  surprise 
and  demorahzation  of  the  sudden  bombardment;  and  conse- 
quently the  British  failed  to  gain  the  commanding  ridge  east 
of  Neuve  Chapelle.  At  the  cost  of  13,000  lives,  Sir  John  French 
had  advanced  his  line  a  mile  or  so,  on  a  front  of  three  miles, 
but  the  great  city  of  Lille,  his  main  objective,  was  still  securely 
in  German  hands. 

By  the  middle  of  April  the  Allied  offensive  in  the  West  had 
made  small  local  gains  ''nibbling"  at  the  German  Knes,  but  had 
failed  to  accompHsh  any  strategically  important  object,  either 
in  the  movement  toward  Lille,  in  the  advance  in  Champagne, 
or  in  the  attack  on  the  St.  Mihiel  salient.  Shortly  after  the 
British  offensive  had  come  to  a  standstill,  the  British  minister  of 
war.  Lord  Kitchener,  told  the  House  of  Lords  that  the  shortage 
of  munitions  was  causing  him  ''very  serious  anxiety,"  and  Sir 
John  French's  official  report  of  the  battle  of  Neuve  Chapelle 
likewise  referred  to  the  pressing  need  of  *'an  almost  unKmited 
supply  of  ammunition." 

Herein  lay  the  real  explanation  of  Allied  failure  in  191 5.  The 
Great  War  was  a  war  of  machines  and  ammunition  as  well  as  of 
men.  Not  only  were  the  Russians  deficient  in  ammunition  and 
artillery  and  airplanes,  but  in  191 5  the  French  and  British 
also.  To  make  the  first  dent  on  the  heavily  armored  German 
trenches  of  the  Western  Front  required,  as  the  British  and  French 
learned  from  sorry  experience,  the  employment  of  all  their  reserve 
cannon  and  all  their  reserve  shells;  to  carry  any  considerable 
section  of  the  enemy  lines  and  to  "break  through"  would  require 
greater  reserves  than  they  then  possessed. 

To  add  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  AlKes,  the  Germans  actually 
undertook  a  counter-offensive  against  Ypres  in  April  and  May, 
191 5.  The  Germans  did  not  prepare  the  way  for  their  attack 
by  artillery  but  by  a  cloud  of  greenish  vapor  which  a  gentle 
breeze  wafted  towards  the  AlHes'  trenches.     The  vapor,  as  the 


ii6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


Allied  troops  soon  discovered  to  their  amazement  and  consterna- 
tion, was  chlorine  gas,  which  chokes  and  asphyxiates  with  horrible 
effect.  The  French  troops  holding  the  line  north  of  Ypres 
broke  and  fled  before  this  novel  and  diaboHcally  cruel  form  of 
attack,  and  Ypres  itself  was  saved  only  by  the  gallant  and  dogged 


The  Second  Battle  of  Ypres,  April-May,  191 5 

resistance  of  Canadian  troops.  After  a  month's  incessant 
fighting,  the  battle  of  Ypres  died  down :  the  Allies  had  prevented 
the  Germans  from  *' breaking  through,"  but  the  Germans  had 
greatly  reduced  the  Allied  saHent  in  front  of  Ypres  and 
above  all  had  put  new  fear  and  new  terror  into  the  hearts  of 
the  Allies. 

Thenceforth  the  Allies,  and  above  all  the  British,  labored 
zealously  and  anxiously  to  supply  an  equipment  of  hand-grenades, 
bombs,  high-explosive  shells,  machine  guns,  airplanes,  and 
respirators  (for  protection  against  gas  attacks),  that  would  be 
adequate  for  the  new  needs  of  trench- warfare.  But  such  an 
equipment  could  not  be  supphed  by  day-and-night  output  of 
all  the  available  factories  of  France  and  Great  Britain,  in  a  week, 
or  in  a  month,  or  even  in  several  months.  Meanwhile  decisive 
engagements  on  the  Western  Front  must  pause.  But  meanwhile 
the  Germans,  satisfied  that  they  had  little  to  fear  from  French 


RUSSIA  RETREATS  117 

or  British  during  the  next  few  months  and  that  their  own  superior 
equipment  and  technique  would  offset  any  superiority  of  Alhed 
numbers,  hastened  to  fight  decisive  engagements  on  the  Eastern 
Front.  Russia  must  pay  for  the  unpreparedness  of  Great  Britain 
and  France. 

Chlorine  gas  —  the  latest  novelty  in  German  ^'frightfulness" 
—  was  emitted  against  the  AlKes  at  Ypres  in  April,  1915.  On 
May  I,  Mackensen's  Drive  into  Galicia  began.  And  from  May 
to  September  occurred  that  series  of  sensational  thrusts  and 
triumphs  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  carried  German  con- 
quest into  the  heart  of  Russia. 

Immediately  after  the  first  Russian  reverses  in  GaHcia,  Gen- 
eral Foch,  commanding  the  northern  sector  of  the  Western 
Front,  sought  a  diversion  by  directing  his  forces  again  to  take 
the  offensive.  On  May  9,  the  French  just  north  of  Arras  and  the 
British  farther  north  in  the  vicinity  of  Neuve  Chapelle  simul- 
taneously assailed  the  German  trenches.  The  immediate  objec- 
tive of  the  French  attack  was  the  important  railway  center  of 
Lens ;  that  of  the  British  was  the  Aubers  ridge  east  of  Neuve 
Chapelle ;  if  successful,  from  Lens  and  Aubers  the  AlHes  might 
push  on  toward  Lille.  But  after  a  month's  most  sanguinary 
struggle  the  offensive  broke  down.  The  British  had  won  ^'the 
entire  first-line  system  of  trenches"  on  a  front  of  3200  yards 
and  the  first  and  second  lines  on  a  front  of  two  miles  or  more, 
but  they  had  not  reached  Aubers.  The  French  had  mastered 
the  so-called  ^'Labyrinth,"  an  intricate  maze  of  trenches  and 
subterranean  tunnels,  but  Lens  remained  uncap tured.  No 
relief  was  afforded  the  Russians  —  and  none  could  be  afforded. 

In  fact  the  AUies  in  the  summer  of  191 5  grew  very  fearful 
lest  by  spending  their  small  reserve  of  shells  in  fruitless  assaults 
on  the  German  trenches  they  would  be  so  impoverished  of 
suppHes  that  they  would  be  unable  to  hold  their  own  against  a 
later  great  German  Drive  in  the  West.^  So  the  best  they  could 
do  was  to  husband  their  resources,  to  hurry  munition-production, 
to  harry  the  besieging  Germans,  and  to  suffer  their  enemy  to 
inflict  upon  their  Eastern  ally  one  defeat  after  another.  They 
wished  to  help  Russia,  but  they  were  impotent. 

It  was  not  until  late  September,  when  Hindenburg's  Drive 
was  practically  completed,  that  the  Alfies  on  the  Western  Front 
felt  themselves  sufficiently  suppHed  with  munitions  to  undertake 

1  This  fear  was  rendered  acute  in  July  by  the  success  of  the  German  Crown 
Prince  in  advancing  his  Hues  in  the  Argonne  some  four  hundred  yards  despite  his 
supposed  inferiority  of  numbers  and  his  recognized  deficiency  in  commanding 
quaUties. 


ii8         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

a  forward  movement.  During  the  summer  many  thousands  of 
British  soldiers,  who  before  the  war  had  been  skilled  mechanics, 
had  been  released  from  active  service  in  France  and  sent  home 
for  munitions  work.  In  Great  Britain,  the  purchase  of  raw 
materials  and  the  employment  of  labor  had  been  organized; 
every  machine-tool  factory  was  under  control  of  a  governmental 
Ministry  of  Munitions ;  and,  in  addition  to  the  twenty  national 
shell  factories  already  in  operation,  eleven  new  projectile  works 
had  been  estabHshed.  In  France  the  situation  was  even  better : 
the  hope  expressed  in  the  summer,  that  by  October  the  full 
complement  of  French  shells  would  be  attained,  seemed  hkely 
to  be  realized. 

In  September,  191 5,  intense  activity  of  Allied  aviators  and 
furious  bombardment  of  the  German  trenches  in  France  heralded 
the  beginning  of  a  forward  movement.  The  infantry  attack 
began  on  September  25.  While  unimportant  assaults  were 
delivered  near  Ypres,  and  at  other  points  along  the  line,  the  main 
attacks  were  concentrated  at  two  points,  the*  one  in  Artois  just 
north  of  Arras,  the  other  in  Champagne  midway  between  Rheims 
and  Verdun. 

In  the  Artois  region  the  initial  onset  met  with  brilHant  success. 
A  French  army  under  General  d'Urbal,  north  of  Arras,  captured 
Souchez  and  reached  the  ridge  dominating  the  town  of  Vimy. 
Sir  John  French  reported  that  cooperating  British  troops  ^'  carried 
the  enemy's  first  and  most  powerful  line  of  intrenchments, 
extending  from  our  extreme  right  flank  at  Grenay  (just  west  of 
Lens)  to  a  point  north  of  the  Hohenzollern  redoubt  —  a  dis- 
tance of  6500  yards.  The  position  was  exceptionally  strong, 
consisting  of  a  double  Hne,  which  included  some  large  redoubts 
and  a  network  of  trenches  and  bomb-proof  shelters.  Dugouts 
were  constructed  at  short  intervals  all  along  the  line,  some 
of  them  being  large  caves  thirty  feet  below  the  ground."  British 
troops  succeeded,  moreover,  in  occupying  the  village  of  Loos  and 
the  outskirts  of  Hulluck  between  Lens  and  La  Bassee.  ''The 
enemy's  second  line  posts  were  taken,  the  commanding  position 
known  as  Hill  70  in  advance  [east]  of  Loos  was  finally  captured, 
and  a  strong  line  was  established  and  consolidated  in  close  prox- 
imity to  the  German  third  and  last  line." 

Meanwhile,  in  Champagne,  according  to  an  official  report, 
the  French  under  General  Castelnau,  during  September  26- 
27,  ''succeeded  north  of  Souain  and  Perthes  in  occupying  a 
front  facing  north,  and  in  contact  with  the  German  second  line, 
along  a  stretch  of  seven  and  a  half  miles.     The  ground  thus 


RUSSIA  RETREATS 


119 


conquered  represented  an  area  of  some  fifteen  and  a  half  square 
miles,  and  was  traversed  by  lines  of  trenches  graduated  to  a 
great  depth.  The  borders  of  the  woods  were  organized  for 
defense,  and  innumerable  passages,  trenches,  and  parallels 
facilitated  resistance  foot  by  foot." 

After  the  shock  of  the  initial  attack,  however,  the  Allies  failed 
to  press  on,  as  popular  critics  expected,  to  capture  the  German 


railway  connections  at  Lens  in  Artois  and  at  Somme-Py  in  Cham- 
pagne. In  Champagne,  to  be  sure,  the  French  captured  the 
village  of  Tahure,  October  6,  and  further  slight  gains  were  made 
in  Artois,  but  the  whole  movement  reached  a  standstill  by  the 
middle  of  October.  It  was  patent  that,  despite  feverish  activity 
of  Allied  factories  throughout  the  summer,  the  Germans  still 
enjoyed  a  superiority  in  munitions-production  besides  an  almost 
impregnable  defensive  position,  and  that  to  drive  the  Germans 
out  of  France  and  Belgium  would  be  a  terribly  difficult  task. 


I20         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Though  France  and  Great  Britain  by  their  repeated  failures 
in  191 5  had  displayed  their  inabihty  to  prevent  Germany  from 
administering  decisive  defeats  to  Russia,  they  had  more  than 
held  their  own.  They  had  learned  some  valuable  lessons  in 
trench- warfare  by  sad  experience.  They  had,  with  severe 
losses  to  themselves,  considerably  depleted  Germany's  man- 
power, —  and  in  the  long  run  they  could  afford  depletion  of 
man-power  better  than  Germany.  Most  important  of  all, 
they  had  utiHzed  the  lull  in  Germany's  attacks  upon  them  in 
order  to  forge  new  weapons  in  constantly  augmenting  quantities. 
They  had  failed  to  reheve  Russia,  but  the  great  Drives  of  Mack- 
ensen  and  Hindenburg  against  Russia  had  absorbed  Germany's 
attention  and  energies  and  had  prevented  her  from  crippHng 
France  and  Great  Britain  in  their  weakest  hour.^  As  the  event 
subsequently  proved,  Russia  had  reheved  Great  Britain  and 
France. 

In  the  meantime  bitter  criticism  was  heard  in  England,  and 
profound  disappointment  was  expressed  in  France.  In  Ger- 
many the  latest  forward  movement  of  the  AlHes  was  regarded 
as  a  costly  failure,  and  a  clear  proof  of  the  abihty  of  the  Germans, 
with  their  superior  technique,  to  hold  their  lines  in  France  against 
heavy  numerical  odds.  Of  the  September  movement  alone  a 
BerHn  report  estimated  the  French  casualties  at  130,000,  the 
British  at  60,000,  and  the  German  at  40,000.^  Sure  of  them- 
selves in  the  West  and  elated  at  their  continuous  triumphs 
in  the  East,  the  Germans  were  now  quite  obsessed  by  the  mad 
genius  of  *' grandeur."  The  Kaiser  and  the  General  Staff  looked 
about  for  new  worlds  to  conquer. 

1  In  Great  Britain,  especially,  zeal  for  recruiting  and  determination  to  win  the 
war  were  immeasurably  heightened,  despite  Russian  reverses,  by  continued  German 
outrages  in  Belgium,  notably  by  the  "judicial  murder,"  on  October  12,  191 5,  of 
Edith  Cavell,  a  brave  English  nurse  in  Brussels,  who  had  aided  the  escape  of 
wounded  British  prisoners. 

2  The  French  General  Staff  estimated  the  German  losses  at  200,000. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GERMANY   MASTERS   THE   NEAR  EAST 
DECLINE  OF  ALLIED   PRESTIGE 

The  year  191 5  marked  the  height  of  Teutonic  triumph  and 
the  nadir  of  Allied  defeat.  To  the  optimism  of  the  AlHes  at 
the  beginning  of  the  year  rapidly  succeeded  a  profound  pessimism 
which  speedily  affected  neutral  countries,  especially  the  waver- 
ing Balkan  states.  In  the  spring  of  191 5  the  Allies  had  set  out 
with  high  hopes  to  dominate  the  Near  East,  but  a  series  of 
mistakes  and  misfortunes  dashed  their  hopes  and  loosened 
their  hold. 

Turkey's  entry  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Central  Empires 
had  appeared  almost  providential  to  the  Allies;  if  properly 
exploited,  it  might  have  provided  a  powerful  motive  and  a 
favorable  opportunity  for  reviving  the  Balkan  League  and  for 
employing  it  not  only  to  dissolve  the  Ottoman  Empire  but  also 
to  disintegrate  Austria-Hungary  and  bring  Germany  to  terms. 
But  the  failure  of  the  Anglo-French  naval  attack  on  the  Darda- 
nelles in  March  and  the  repeated  failures  of  the  Anglo-French 
land  forces  on  Gallipoli  in  May  and  June  signified  for  the  Alhes 
a  falHng  barometer  in  the  Balkans.  Thenceforth  the  barometer 
fell  rapidly. 

In  May,  Italy  was  prevailed  upon  to  enter  the  war  on  the  side 
of  the  Allies,  but  only  by  means  of  the  most  extravagant  promises 
of  eventual  territorial  compensations,  and  territorial  compensa- 
tions in  considerable  part  at  the  expense  of  the  Balkan  states. 
Yet  Italy  sent  no  aid  to  Serbia  or  to  the  Dardanelles,  and  the 
progress  of  her  arms  against  Austria-Hungary  in  the  summer 
of  191 5  was  not  such  as  to  inspire  enthusiasm  or  confidence. 

Meanwhile  the  Russian  campaign  in  Galicia,  so  promising 
in  March,  met  with  terrible  disaster  in  May ;  and  from  May  to 
September  the  Russians  abandoned  to  the  Austro-Germans  one 
city  after  another,  one  province  after  another.  All  of  GaHcia, 
all  of  Poland,  large  strips  of  Lithuania  and  Courland,  became 
Teutonic  conquests. 


122         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

And  meanwhile,  too,  on  the  Western  Front  one  Allied  offensive 
after  another  broke  down.  Apparently  the  French  and  British 
could  barely  hold  their  own;  certainly  they  could  not  reUeve 
Russia  in  her  hour  of  supreme  need.  How  could  they  hope  to 
aid  the  Balkan  states,  if  these  were  minded  to  declare  war  against 
Turkey  and  the  Central  Empires  and  thereby  incur  the  risk  of 
invasion  by  Turco-Teu tonic  hosts  ? 

To  regain  some  of  their  rapidly  waning  prestige  in  the  Balkans 
the  Allies  resolved  to  put  forth  one  supreme  effort  to  clear  the 
Gallipoli  peninsula  of  Turkish  defenders  and  open  the  way  to 
Constantinople.  If  the  heights  called  Sari  Bair,  back  of  Anzac 
Cove,  could  be  carried  by  storm,  an  attack  on  the  European 
defenses  of  the  Dardanelles  might  be  undertaken  with  reasonable 
probability  of  success.  The  great  effort  was  made  early  in 
August,  just  after  the  Russians  had  lost  Warsaw.  While  re- 
enforcements  were  landed  at  Suvla  Bay,  north  of  Sari  Bair, 
Australasian  and  Indian  troops  with  reckless  gallantry  charged 
up  the  slopes  of  the  hill.  Indians  actually  succeeded  in  reaching 
a  point  on  the  heights  whence  they  could  look  down  upon  the 
Dardanelles,  but  they  were  compelled  to  fall  back  for  lack  of 
support.  With  valor  quite  equal  to  that  shown  by  the  British 
colonials,  the  Turks  swept  down  the  slopes,  in  the  face  of  a 
murderous  artillery  and  machine-gun  fire,  to  dislodge  the  British 
from  the  footholds  which  had  been  gained.  On  August  lo,  at 
the  close  of  the  battle,  the  British  still  held  some  of  their  gains, 
but  two  commanding  positions,  which  had  been  won  by  daring 
assaults,  had  been  lost  again  to  the  Turks,  and  the  supreme 
effort  had  failed  with  a  loss  of  40,000  British  troops.  In  the 
trenches  at  the  tip  of  the  Gallipoli  peninsula,  the  Anglo-French 
troops  were  decimated  by  disease ;  before  Sari  Bair  the  British 
colonials  were  maddened  by  thirst  in  consequence  of  unpardonable 
inefficiency  in  the  management  of  the  water  supply.  The  whole 
Dardanelles  and  GalHpoli  exploit  was  worse  than  a  failure;  it 
was  a  disgrace.  All  things  considered,  it  was  small  wonder 
that  by  September,  191 5,  the  Allied  barometer  in  the  Balkans 
had  fallen  until  it  indicated  storms  and  tempests. 

Throughout  the  spring  and  summer  of  191 5  the  diplomatists 
of  the  Entente  Powers  had  essayed  to  reconcile  Bulgaria  with 
Serbia,  Greece,  and  Rumania,  and  to  bring  about  the  joint  inter- 
vention of  the  three  neutral  states  —  Bulgaria,  Greece,  and 
Rumania.  But  Bulgaria  would  not  be  reconciled  unless  her 
neighbors  should  relinquish  what  she  believed  they  had  robbed 
her  of  in  the  Balkan  War  of  1913  :  she  must  have  the  Bulgarian 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR   EAST  123 

Dobrudja  from  Rumania,  the  towns  of  Drama  and  Kavala 
from  Greece,  and  from  Serbia  a  wide  extent  of  Macedonia  in- 
cluding Monastir.  Serbia,  however,  after  long  negotiations, 
was  willing  to  give  only  partial  satisfaction  to  Bulgaria's  Mace- 
donian aspirations,  for  since  Italy's  entry  into  the  war  she  had 
discovered  an  unwonted  chariness  on  the  part  of  the  Entente 
about  pledging  compensations  on  the  Adriatic  for  sacrifices  she 
might  make  in  Macedonia. 

In  Greece  were  divided  counsels.  On  one  hand,  the  party  of 
Premier  Venizelos,  which  controlled  the  majority  of  the  Greek 
ParHament,  was  ardently  in  favor  of  the  Entente  and  eager  to 
enter  the  war ;  Venizelos  felt  that  concessions  might  profitably 
be  made  to  Bulgaria  in  view  of  the  prospect  of  Greece's  securing 
Smyrna  and  Cyprus.  King  Constantine,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
the  support  of  his  German-trained  army  officers,  and  with  the 
approval  of  a  popular  element,  was  stubbornly  determined  not 
to  join  forces  with  the  Entente.  The  king's  refusal  to  intervene 
in  the  war  was  perhaps  partly  ascribable  to  the  influence  of  his 
wife.  Queen  Sophia,  a  sister  of  the  German  Emperor;  doubt- 
less also  the  admiration  for  German  military  methods,  to  which 
he  had  frequently  given  outspoken  expression  before  the  war, 
now  made  him  extremely  reluctant  to  hazard  his  own  army  in 
a  struggle  against  the  Central  Empires,  particularly  since  the 
Entente  armies  had  given  no  convincing  proof  as  yet  of  their 
ability  to  win  the  war.  At  any  rate  King  Constantine  positively 
declined  to  approve  any  territorial  cessions  to  Bulgaria,  assign- 
ing patriotic  motives,  although  in  so  doing  he  had  to  part  with 
his  popular  premier  (March,  19 15)  and  to  ignore  the  mandate 
of  a  general  election  (June).  When  at  length,  late  in  August, 
Venizelos  was  reinstated  in  the  premiership,  the  military  situa- 
tion was  so  universally  unfavorable  to  the  Entente  that  even  he 
promised  to  maintain  neutrality  and  to  countenance  no  cession 
of  Greek  territory. 

Rumania's  position  throughout  this  season  was  not  a  happy 
one.  She  longed  for  territorial  expansion,  but  its  achievement 
involved  the  solution  of  a  difficult  problem  of  tactics.  If  she 
joined  the  Entente,  she  might  wrest  Transylvania  and  Bukowina 
'from  Austria-Hungary.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  she  should  join 
the  Central  Empires,  she  might  conquer  Bessarabia  from  Russia. 
Obviously,  she  could  not  ^'eat  the  cake  and  keep  it  too."  If 
she  chose  Bessarabia,  she  could  not  have  Transylvania,  and 
vice  versa  her  appropriation  of  Transylvania  would  bar  her  from 
Bessarabia.     Furthermore,  her  geographical  situation  was  most 


124         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

embarrassing.  Her  irregular  and  unshapely  boundaries  ex- 
posed her  to  easy  invasion  from  Russia,  from  Hungary,  and 
especially  from  Bulgaria.  On  whatever  side  she  chose  to  fight, 
she  must  be  certain  that  the  other  sides  were  securely  held  by 
friends.  The  royal  family  in  Rumania,  though  Hohenzollern 
by  birth,  were  believed  to  be  somewhat  pro- Ally  in  sentiment ; 
and  probably  a  large  majority  of  the  Rumanian  people  hoped  for 
and  expected  an  eventual  Allied  victory.  It  was  but  natural, 
however,  that  the  statesmen  of  the  country  should  make  Bul- 
garia's adherence  to  the  Allied  cause  a  prerequisite  to  Rumania's 
participation.  Faced  on  the  west  by  an  unvanquished  Austria 
and  on  the  north  by  a  retreating  Russia,  Rumania  could  not  view 
with  equanimity  a  hostile  Bulgaria  to  the  south.  So,  when 
neither  Serbia  nor  Greece  would  make  the  concessions  demanded 
by  Bulgaria,  Rumania  prudently  abstained  from  casting  in  her 
lot  with  the  Entente.  And  her  prudence  seemed  amply  justified 
by  the  reverses  and  resulting  miseries  which  beset  great  Russia 
in  September,  191 5. 

The  Anglo-French  failures  at  the  Dardanelles  and  on  Gallipoli, 
the  spectacular  victories  of  the  Austro- Germans  in  Russia,  and 
the  powerlessness  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy  to  render 
effectual  assistance  to  their  hard-pressed  ally,  made  the  task 
of  Entente  diplomacy  in  the  Balkans  difficult  and  painful.  The 
prestige  of  the  Allies  had  reached  the  vanishing  point ;  they  had 
failed  to  dominate  the  Near  East  —  and  had  failed  utterly. 
But  by  the  same  token  the  prestige  of  the  Teutons  had  increased ; 
their  diplomatists  found  roses  where  the  AlHes  had  discovered 
thorns.     Germany  laid  plans  to  master  the  Near  East. 

BULGARIA'S  ENTRY  INTO  THE  WAR  AND   THE   CONQUEST 

OF  SERBIA 

Shifty  King  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria  and  his  faithful  henchman. 
Premier  Radoslavoff,  were  much-courted  personages  during  the 
summer  of  191 5.  Their  active  assistance  was  solicited  alike  by 
Central  Empires  and  by  Entente  Powers.  Knowing  full  well 
that  Bulgaria  held  the  balance  of  power  in  the  Balkans,  they 
were  resolved  to  sell  their  country's  aid  to  the  highest  bidder. 
As  Radoslavoff  said  on  August  9,  ''Bulgaria  is  fully  prepared 
and  waiting  to  enter  the  war  the  moment  she  receives  absolute 
guarantees  that  by  so  doing  she  will  obtain  that  for  which  other 
nations  already  engaged  are  striving,  namely,  the  realization 
of  her  national  ideals.  .  .  .     The  bulk  of  these  aspirations  lie 


I 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  125 

in  Serbian  Macedonia,  which  with  its  1,500,000  Bulgar  in- 
habitants was  pledged  and  assigned  to  us  at  the  close  of  the 
first  Balkan  war.  It  is  still  ours  by  right  and  principle  of  na- 
tionality. When  the  Triple  Entente  can  assure  us  that  this 
territory  will  be  returned  to  Bulgaria  and  our  minor  claims  in 
Greek  Macedonia  and  elsewhere  realized,  the  Allies  will  find  us 
ready  to  fight  with  them.  But  these  guarantees  must  be  real 
and  absolute.     No  mere  paper  ones  can  be  accepted." 

It  was  already  apparent  to  the  Bulgarian  government  that 
the  offer  of  Macedonia,  if  made  by  the  Entente,  would  not  be 
concurred  in  by  the  parties  most  vitally  concerned,  Serbia  and 
Greece,  and  could  not  be  carried  out  by  a  France  and  Great 
Britain  impotent  to  defeat  the  Turks,  or  by  a  Russia  incapable 
of  defending  Warsaw.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Central  Empires 
promised  Bulgaria  not  only  larger  Serbian  spoils  than  the  Entente 
had  ever  contemplated  but  also  a  rectification  of  her  Turkish 
boundary,  a  liberal  financial  loan,  and  immediate  military  aid 
by  veterans  of  Mackensen's  and  Hindenburg's  Drives.  Ferdinand 
and  Radoslavoff  hesitated  no  longer.  On  September  6,  191 5, 
they  signed  at  Sofia  a  secret  convention  with  representatives 
of  the  Dual  Monarchy,  providing  for  a  joint  attack  upon  Serbia 
and  for  the  territorial  rewards  to  Bulgaria. 

Bulgaria,  in  accordance  with  the  secret  convention,  speedily 
concluded  arrangements  with  German  bankers  for  an  advance 
of  fifty  million  dollars,  of  which  about  half  was  to  be  paid  forth- 
with in  cash  and  the  remainder  appHed  to  outstanding  obUga- 
tions.^  Likewise,  in  September,  a  treaty  was  signed  with  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  whereby  Bulgaria  was  to  receive  the  corner 
of  European  Turkey  marked  off  by  the  line  of  the  Maritza  and 
Tunja  rivers,  including  the  railway  station  at  Karagatch  though 
not  Adrianople,  and  in  return  was  to  maintain  ^' armed  neu- 
trahty." 

At  once  the  Bulgarian  army  was  mobilized  "for  the  main- 
tenance of  armed  neutrality."  Sir  Edward  Grey,  manifestly 
unconvinced  by  the  official  announcement  of  the  Bulgarian 
government  that  mobilization  was  not  preliminary  to  war,  de- 
clared in  the  British  House  of  Commons  on  September  28,  "If 
it  should  result  in  Bulgaria  assuming  an  aggressive  attitude  on 
the  side  of  our  enemies  we  are  prepared  to  give  our  friends  in 
the  Balkans  all  the  support  in  our  power."  Early  in  October, 
Russia  dispatched  an  ultimatum  to  Sofia,  affirming  that  "The 
presence  of  German  and  Austrian  officers  at  the  Ministry  of 
^  This  was  in  addition  to  an  advance  of  thirty  millions  made  in  February,  1915. 


126         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

War  and  on  the  staff  of  the  army,  the  concentration  of  troops 
in  the  zone  bordering  Serbia,  and  the  extensive  financial  sup- 
port accepted  from  our  enemies  by  the  Sofia  cabinet,  no  longer 
leave  any  doubt  as  to  the  object  of  the  military  preparations 
of  Bulgaria."  The  ultimatum  allowed  the  Bulgarian  govern- 
ment twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  dismiss  the  Teuton  officers 
and  '' openly  break  with  the  enemies  of  the  Slav  cause  and  of 
Russia." 

To  the  entreaties  and  threats  of  the  Entente  Powers  Bul- 
garia was  deaf.  On  October  14,  191 5,  she  declared  war  on 
Serbia.  On  the  next  day  Great  Britain  declared  war  against 
her,  and  France  followed  suit  on  October  16,  and  Russia  and 
Italy  on  October  19.  Sir  Edward  Grey  admitted  that  the 
Central  Powers  had  successfully  outbid  the  Entente  in  their 
offers  for  Bulgarian  support. 

When  Bulgaria  finally  entered  the  war  and  began  an  invasion 
of  Serbia  from  the  east,  the  conquest  of  Serbia  was  already 
under  way  from  the  north.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  Great 
War  had  been  precipitated  by  the  purpose  of  Austria-Hungary 
to  ''chastise"  Serbia;  yet  for  more  than  a  year  Serbia  had  re- 
mained unchastised.  This  fact  was  due  not  so  much  to  Serbian 
valor,  of  which,  however,  there  were  plentiful  instances,  as  to 
Austria's  need  of  defending  herself  against  Russia  and  her 
desire  not  to  alienate  Italy.  The  entry  of  Italy  into  the  war  in 
May,  191 5,  and  the  subsequent  rapid  retreat  of  Russia  changed 
the  aspect  of  affairs.  There  was  no  longer  any  chance  of  keep- 
ing Italy  neutral  and  the  distant  retirement  and  resulting  ex- 
haustion of  the  Russians  made  it  practicable  for  Austria- 
Hungary  at  the  end  of  September,  191 5,  to  transfer  large  forces 
from  the  Russian  to  the  Serbian  Front.  Moreover,  the  demon- 
strated ability  of  the  German  troops  on  the  Western  Front  to 
hold  the  main  armies  of  the  French  and  British  rendered  it 
possible  for  Germany  to  send  some  of  her  victorious  veterans 
of  the  Russian  campaign  to  cooperate  with  Austrians  and  Hun- 
garians in  a  sensational,  whirlwind  drive,  whose  purpose  would 
be  more  than  the  mere  chastisement  of  Serbia  —  it  would  be 
Teutonic  mastery  of  the  Near  East. 

Serbia  was  no  longer  in  a  position  to  thwart  the  Teutonic 
purpose.  Her  great  losses  in  the  battles  of  19 14  had  been 
succeeded  by  further  depletions  in  191 5  from  pestilence  and 
famine,  until  her  total  armed  strength,  allowing  for  the  use  of 
every  available  man,  amounted  to  less  than  200,000.  Thrice 
she  had  been  invaded  and  thrice  in  heroic  battles  she  had  flung 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  127 

back  the  invader,  but  each  time  the  enemy  had  been  Austrian 
and  in  number  had  barely  exceeded  her  own  forces.  Now, 
however,  her  northern  border  was  threatened  by  at  least  300,000 
Austro- Germans,  equipped  with  the  most  up-to-date  guns  and 
with  unlimited  stores  of  ammunition,  flushed  with  recent  victories 
over  the  Russians,  and  commanded  by  Field-Marshal  von 
Mackensen,  one  of  the  ablest  of  German  generals.  Further- 
more, unlike  the  campaigns  of  19 14,  Serbia  was  now  doomed  to 
face  an  onset  of  Bulgarian  troops,  350,000  strong,  who  would 
cross  her  extended  eastern  border  and  threaten  at  many  points 
the  capture  of  her  one  important  line  of  railway  up  the  Morava 
and  down  the  Vardar  rivers,  her  one  dependable  Hne  of  com- 
munication with  Salonica  and  Western  Europe.  If  no  aid  should 
come  to  her  from  Greece  or  from  England  and  France,  she  would 
certainly  be  overborne  by  weight  of  numbers  and  quantity  of 
munitions ;  her  armies  would  be  surrounded  and  probably 
annihilated. 

Austro- German  forces  were  thrown  across  the  Danube  and 
Save  rivers  on  October  7.  Belgrade  fell  two  days  later,  and 
Semendria  and  Pojarevatz  in  quick  succession.  The  main  body 
of  Mackensen's  command  were  thus  prepared  to  sweep  south- 
ward up  the  Morava  valley  toward  Nish,  the  Serbian  war- 
capital,  while  the  left  flank  possessed  itself  of  the  Danube  valley 
in  northeastern  Serbia  and  the  right  flank  crossed  the  Drina 
river  and  occupied  northwestern  Serbia.  Then  it  was  that 
Bulgaria  declared  war.  King  Ferdinand  scented  a  corpse  and 
proceeded  to  rifle  dying  Serbia. 

The  Serbians  could  barely  cope  with  the  Austro- Germans  in 
the  north ;  against  the  Bulgarians  in  the  east  and  south  they 
could  only  oflfer  pitifully  inadequate  resistance  and  trust  in  the 
prompt  arrival  of  foreign  aid  from  Salonica.  No  aid  arrived, 
however,  and  the  Bulgarians  enjoyed  a  triumphal  procession 
into  Macedonia.  From  Kustendil  the  main  Bulgarian  army, 
under  General  Teodorov,  advanced  by  way  of  Egri  Palanka. 
Rail  connections  between  Nish  and  Salonica  were  cut  first  at 
Vrania.  Veles,  or  Kuprulu,  fell  on  October  20,  and  two  days 
later  the  Bulgarians  entered  Uskub,  the  converging  point  of  all 
the  roads  of  southern  Serbia. 

On  October  26,  another  Bulgarian  army,  under  General 
Bojadiev,  after  crossing  the  Timok  river  and  capturing  Negotin 
and  Prahovo,  effected  a  junction  with  the  Teutonic  left  wing 
in  the  northeastern  corner  of  Serbia.  Thereby  the  Teu to- 
Bulgarian  forces  were  in  contact  with  each  other  on  a  wide  semi- 


128 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


circular  front  extending  from  the  Drina  around  north  of  Kragu- 
jevatz,  west  of  Negotin,  east  of  Nish,  to  a  point  west  of  Uskub. 
The  Serbians  now  formed  two  forces,  hopelessly  isolated  by  the 
Bulgarian  advance  from  Uskub  towards  Prishtina,  the  one,  the 


remnant  of  the  armies  of  the  North,  lying  from  Kragujevatz 
to  east  of  Nish,  the  other  and  lesser  in  the  hills  north  of  Monastir. 
The  invaders  pushed  on  relentlessly.  Kragujevatz,  the 
principal  Serbian  arsenal,  was  captured  on  October  30.  Nish, 
after  a  stubborn  defense,  fell  on  November  6.     In  vain  did  the 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  129 

Serbian  armies  of  the  north  attempt  to  stand  at  the  Ibar  river ; 
Novibazar  was  lost  on  November  20,  and  Mitrovitza  and  Prish- 
tina  three  days  later ;  the  remnants  were  swept  together  in  the 
plain  of  Kossovo  by  the  converging  Austrian,  German,  and 
Bulgarian  columns.  Thousands  were  taken  prisoner,  and  only 
a  band  of  refugees,  including  King  Peter  riding  in  a  rude  ox- 
cart, succeeded  in  reaching  Montenegro. 

The  last  action  before  the  complete  conquest  of  Serbia  was 
fought  by  the  small  army  in  the  south  in  a  desperate  effort  to 
stem  the  Bulgarian  advance  from  Uskub  upon  Prisrend  and 
Monastir.  At  Babuna  Pass,  between  Uskub  and  Prilep,  the 
Serbians  checked  overwhelmingly  superior  forces  of  the  enemy 
for  a  week  and  more.  Eventually  they  had  to  abandon  the 
Pass  and  Prilep  as  well.  Prisrend  was  surrendered  on  the  last 
day  of  November,  and  Monastir  on  December  5.  The  virtual 
completion  of  the  conquest  of  Serbia  was  signalized  by  an  an- 
nouncement of  Field  Marshal  von  Mackensen  on  November  28, 
that  "with  the  flight  of  the  scanty  remnants  of  the  Serbian  army 
into  the  Albanian  mountains  our  main  operations  are  closed." 

FAILURE   OF  THE  ALLIES  TO   RELIEVE   SERBIA:    THE 
SALONICA  EXPEDITION 

The  only  chance  which ,  the  Serbians  had  of  stemming  in- 
vasion and  preventing  German  mastery  of  the  Near  East  lay 
in  prompt  and  effective  military  aid  from  the  Allies.  That 
no  such  aid  was  forthcoming  was  due  to  several  miscalculations 
on  the  part  of  the  Allies :  (i)  it  was  fondly  believed  until  too 
late  that  Bulgaria  would  not  venture  to  ally  herself  with  the 
Central  Empires ;  (2)  it  was  vainly  expected  that  if  perad venture 
Bulgaria  should  attack  Serbia,  Greece  would  feel  constrained 
by  the  terms  of  her  defensive  treaty  of  1913  with  Serbia  to  go  to 
the  assistance  of  that  country ;  and  (3)  it  was  foolishly  imagined 
that  an  immediate  transfer  of  Allied  forces  from  Gallipoli  to 
Salonica,  from  an  offensive  against  the  Turks  to  a  defensive  in 
support  of  Serbia,  would  be  a  confession  of  failure  ruinous  alike 
to  domestic  and  to  foreign  prestige. 

No  doubt  in  the  new  crisis  the  Allies  had  good  reason  to  count 
on  Greek  assistance.  Back  in  March,  191 5,  Venizelos  had  been 
forced  to  resign  the  Greek  premiership  because  of  King  Con- 
stantine's  stubborn  refusal  to  assent  to  the  cession  of  Greek 
territory  necessary  to  reconstitute  the  Balkan  League  and  to 
draw  Bulgaria,  with  Greece,  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the 


I30         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Entente.  In  August,  however,  when  it  was  no  longer  a  question 
of  conciliating  Bulgaria  but  rather  of  respecting  treaty  engage- 
ments with  Serbia,  Venizelos  obtained  from  the  king  sufficient 
assurances  to  enable  him  conscientiously  to  resume  the  premier- 
ship.    With  Venizelos  again  in  power,  the  Allies  were  encouraged. 

Late  in  September,  when  the  Allies  first  awoke  to  the  gravity 
of  the  situation  confronting  Serbia,  Great  Britain  and  France 
promised  Venizelos  that  they  would  send  150,000  men  to  Salonica 
to  help  Greece  fulfill  her  treaty  obHgations.  These  obhgations 
Venizelos  acknowledged  in  a  speech  before  the  Greek  Parliament 
on  October  4.  ^'The  danger  of  conflict  is  great,"  he  said,  ''but 
we  shall  none  the  less  fulfill  the  obhgations  imposed  on  us  by  our 
treaty  of  alfiance."  He  called  for  the  complete  mobiHzation 
of  the  Greek  army.  About  the  same  time  the  first  contingent 
of  AlHed  troops  arrived  at  Salonica.  It  was  obvious  that  the 
Greek  army  of  350,000  men,  in  concert  with  an  Anglo-French 
force,  was  preparing  to  strike  the  Bulgarians  as  soon  as  these 
should  attack  Serbia.  Had  matters  worked  out  as  thus  planned, 
the  success  of  Mackensen's  Drive  into  Serbia  would  have  been 
highly  problematical. 

Once  more  Venizelos  had  reckoned  without  his  king.  Con- 
stantine  was  thoroughly  distrustful  of  the  potency  of  AlHed 
arms  and  filled  with  a  craven  fear  of  what  the  combined  Teutons 
and  Bulgarians  would  do  to  the  Greek  army ;  quite  likely  he  had 
personal  promises  from  the  Kaiser  of  rich  rewards  for  Greece 
if  he  would  remain  neutral.  At  any  rate  on  October  5,  Con- 
stantine  for  the  second  time  forced  the  resignation  of  Venizelos, 
to  the  surprise  of  the  Greeks  and  the  consternation  of  the  AlKes. 
The  new  Greek  ministry  promptly  declared  that  it  would  main- 
tain ''armed  neutrality,"  but  a  neutraHty,  so  far  as  concerned 
the  British  and  French,  ''to  be  characterized  by  the  most  com- 
plete and  sincere  benevolence."  If  this  assurance  meant  any- 
thing, it  signified  that  the  AlHes  might  land  troops  of  their  own 
at  Salonica  and  use  Greek  Macedonia  as  a  base  of  operations 
against  the  Bulgarians,  but  they  must  not  expect  any  armed 
assistance  from  Greece. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  Allies  fell  to  disputing  as  to 
what  was  best  to  do.  Some  of  their  officials  urged  that  the  de- 
fection of  Greece  had  put  a  new  burden  upon  them  and  that  they 
should  strain  every  nerve  to  gather  quickly  a  very  large  army 
of  their  own  at  Salonica ;  the  whole  Anglo-French  expeditionary 
force  should  be  withdrawn  immediately  from  GalKpoli  for  this 
purpose,  and  additional  troops,  if  necessary,  should  be  spared 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  131 

from  the  Western  front.  Others  felt  that  the  burden  put  upon 
them  by  Greek  defection  was  more  than  they  could  bear ;  these 
disputants  protested  against  any  weakening  of  the  Western 
Front  and  against  a  wholesale  withdrawal  from  Gallipoli ;  they 
advocated  making  a  virtue  of  necessity  and  for  the  present  leav- 
ing Serbia  to  her  fate. 

Between  the  extreme  counsels  of  sending  no  aid  to  Serbia  and 
of  dispatching  large  forces  thither,  a  curious  compromise  pre- 
vailed. A  few  troops  would  be  transported  from  Gallipoli, 
but  not  all.  General  Sarrail  would  be  brought  from  the  Western 
Front  to  command  the  expedition  at  Salonica,  but  no  troops  would 
be  spared  from  Marshal  Joffre's  command  in  France.  An 
Anglo-French  force  would  gradually  be  assembled  in  Greek 
Macedonia,  large  enough  to  overawe  neutral  Greece  but  small 
enough  to  be  of  no  striking  assistance  to  friendly  Serbia.^ 

Just  as  a  mistaken  faith  in  Bulgaria's  good  intentions  had 
prevented  the  Allies  in  September  from  concerting  measures 
for  her  coercion,  so  now  in  October  the  AlKes  grossly  under- 
estimated the  stubbornness  and  pro- German  sympathies  of  the 
Greek  king.  They  still  seemed  to  imagine  that  they  could  get 
the  Greek  army  to  fight  alongside  of  their  Salonica  expeditionary 
force.  Otherwise  it  is  difficult  to  explain  why  Anglo-French 
forces  at  Salonica  were  as  large  —  and  as  small  —  as  they  were. 
When,  on  October  14,  191 5,  Bulgaria  finally  entered  the  war, 
more  than  200,000  Austro-Germans  under  Mackensen  were 
pushing  southward  from  the  Save  and  the  Danube  against  the 
Serbian  front,  a  quarter  of  a  million  Bulgarians  were  moving 
westward  against  Serbia's  exposed  right  flank,  to  the  north 
Rumania  was  comfortably  neutral,  while  far  to  the  south  13,000 
French  and  British  troops  in  the  vicinity  of  Salonica  were  pre- 
paring to  march  inland,  and  King  Constantine  was  declaring 
that  his  treaty  of  alliance  with  Serbia  had  no  binding  force  in 
the  existing  emergency. 

Throughout  October  and  November  the  Allies  continued  to 
dicker  with  King  Constantine  and  his  puppet  ministers.  They 
begged  and  they  implored.  They  made  offers  and  overtures. 
In  November,  the  king  dissolved  his  troublesome  pro-Venizelist 
Parliament,  and  the  ensuing  general  election,  from  which  the 
Greek  partisans   of  Venizelos   absented   themselves,   appeared 

1  In  this  connection  it  should  be  noted  that  Sir  Edward  Carson,  in  Great  Britain, 
and  Theophile  Delcasse,  in  France,  resigned  their  ministerial  posts  rather  than 
share  in  the  responsibiUty  of  sending  a  pitifully  weak  expeditionary  force  to  certain 
failure  in  Serbia.  Carson  thought  a  much  larger  expedition  should  be  sent.  Del- 
casse would  send  no  expedition  at  all. 


132  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  the  face  of  its  returns  to  be  a  signal  vindication  of  the  royal 
policy.  More  obstinately  than  ever  Constantine  adhered  to 
his  policy  of  *' armed  neutrahty,"  which  by  December  had  be- 
come to  the  AlHes  as  much  a  threat  as  a  promise. 

Meanwhile  the  Teutons  and  the  Bulgarians  were  overrunning 
Serbia,  to  the  effective  relief  of  which  the  Anglo-French  forces 
at  Salonica  were  too  weak  to  proceed.  General  Sarrail's  small 
army  did  manage  to  advance  up  the  Vardar  river  and  to  in- 
trench itself  on  a  triangle  of  Serbian  territory,  the  base  of 
the  triangle  being  the  Serbo- Greek  frontier,  its  apex  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Vardar  and  Tcherna  rivers,  its  western  leg  the 
Tcherna,  and  its  eastern  leg  a  line  to  Lake  Doiran  near  the  angle 
of  the  Greek,  Serbian,  and  Bulgarian  frontiers.  As  soon  as  the 
Bulgarians  had  put  an  end  to  active  Serbian  resistance  in  the 
field  and  had  occupied  Prisrend  and  Monastir,  they  were  free 
to  turn  their  attention  to  the  AlHed  positions  in  the  south.  The 
battle  of  the  Vardar,  from  December  3  to  12,  1915,  was  simply 
a  series  of  sledge-hammer  blows  delivered  against  the  sides  of 
the  Anglo-French  triangle.  During  the  course  of  the  battle 
the  French  line  was  withdrawn  from  the  Tcherna  to  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  Vardar,  the  apex  was  drawn  back  to  Demir-Kapu, 
the  British  line  to  the  east  was  battered  in,  and  the  whole  Anglo- 
French  force  was  finally  pushed  back  into  Greek  territory.  The 
attempt  of  the  Allies  to  relieve  Serbia  had  ended  in  ignominious 
failure. 

That  the  battle  of  the  Vardar  ended  in  defeat  and  not  disaster 
was  due  to  the  ability  of  the  Franco-British  army,  and  the  un- 
willingness of  the  Bulgarians,  to  cross  the  Serbo- Greek  frontier. 
While  the  Bulgarians,  doubtless  in  compliance  with  Germany's 
request,  stopped  short  at  the  frontier,  the  Allies  retreated  through 
Greek  territory  and  proceeded  to  strengthen  the  Greek  city  of 
Salonica  in  expectation  of  a  Teutonic-Bulgarian  attack.  King 
Constantine,  as  might  have  been  expected,  caused  his  subservient 
premier,  Skouloudis,  to  protest  vociferously  against  this  ''"abuse" 
of  Greek  neutraHty,  but  the  Entente  Powers  could  reply  that 
their  troops  had  been  sent  to  Salonica  at  the  instance  of  Venizelos 
to  assist  Greece  in  fulfilling  the  terms  of  the  secret  Serbo- Greek 
defensive  alHance  against  Bulgaria,  and  this  interpretation  was 
confirmed  by  the  Greek  ex-premier  from  his  retirement. 

Nevertheless  the  situation  of  the  Allies  at  Salonica  was  preca- 
rious in  the  extreme.  In  front  of  them  were  a  quarter  of  a  million 
Bulgarian  soldiers  reenforced  by  Teutonic  and  Turkish  units, 
awaiting  only  a  word  from  the  Kaiser's  brother-in-law  to  cross 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  133 

into  Greek  territory.  Behind  them  were  a  quarter  of  a  million 
Greek  soldiers  held  by  King  Constantine's  orders  under  an 
''armed  neutrality"  that  daily  grew  more  menacing.  It  was 
now  no  longer  a  question  of  relieving  Serbia ;  it  was  a  question 
of  reheving  the  Anglo-French  expeditionary  force  at  Salonica. 

For  this  purpose  the  bulk  of  the  Allied  troops  on  the  Gallipoli 
peninsula  were  still  available.  In  October,  when  General  Sarrail 
had  loudly  called  for  reenforcements  to  enable  him  to  assume  the 
offensive  in  the  Vardar  valley,  Sir  Ian  Hamilton,  the  British 
commander  on  Gallipoli,  had  stoutly  maintained  that  his  troops 
could  not  be  disembarked  thence  without  incurring  disastrous 
losses  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks  and  ruinous  collapse  of  morale. 
Sir  Ian  had  been  recalled  and  Lord  Kitchener  himself  had  been 
sent  to  investigate  the  situation  in  Gallipoli.  Withdrawal  from 
the  peninsula  was  openly  advised  by  General  Monro,  Sir  lan's 
successor,  frankly  discussed  by  the  press,  and  postponed,  it 
seemed,  only  by  the  unwillingness  of  the  British  cabinet  to  ad- 
mit a  disheartening  defeat  at  the  very  time  when  a  supreme  ef- 
fort was  being  made  at  home  to  stir  up  popular  enthusiasm  for 
recruiting.  Towards  the  end  of  December,  however,  when  it 
appeared  likely  that  disaster  would  overtake  the  expedition  at 
Salonica,  as  well  as  that  on  Gallipoli,  the  long-deferred  step  was 
taken  and  the  remaining  British  troops  were  withdrawn  from  the 
Suvla  Bay  and  Anzac  regions  on  the  western  shore.  Shortly 
afterwards,  early  in  January,  191 6,  the  trenches  on  the  tip  of 
the  peninsula  were  abandoned  with  sHght  losses. 

The  campaign  against  the  Dardanelles,  thus  brought  to  an 
inglorious  close,  had  cost  the  British  alone  from  February  to 
December,  191 5,  some  115,000  men,  of  whom  26,000  were  dead. 
The  most  telling  criticism  of  the  management  of  the  Dardanelles 
operations  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  vigorous  apology  for 
the  higher  strategy  which  had  dictated  the  inauguration  of  the 
campaign,  was  expressed  by  Winston  Spencer  Churchill  in  a 
noteworthy  speech  before  the  House  of  Commons  on  Novem- 
ber 15 :  *'It  has  been  proved  in  this  war,"  he  said,  ''that  good 
troops  properly  supported  by  artillery  can  make  a  direct  ad- 
vance two  or  three  miles  in  the  face  of  any  defense.  The  ad- 
vance, for  instance,  which  took  Neuve  Chapelle,  or  Loos,  or 
Souchez,  if  made  on  the  Gallipoli  Peninusla,  would  have  settled 
the  fate  of  the  Turkish  army  on  the  promontory,  would  probably 
have  decided  the  whole  operation,  might  have  determined  the 
attitude  of  the  Balkans,  might  have  cut  off  Germany  from  the 
East,  and  might  have  saved  Serbia." 


134         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

More  bitter  words  could  have  been  said.  If  Serbian  entreaties 
had  been  hearkened  to  and  the  whole  Allied  force  on  Gallipoli 
had  been  withdrawn  immediately  after  its  August  reverses  and 
sent  into  Serbia,  it  might  have  deterred  Bulgaria  from  entering 
the  war,  or,  if  Bulgaria  had  persisted,  it  might  have  saved  Serbia 
from  Bulgarian  conquest  and  might  have  upheld  the  hands  of 
Venizelos  in  his  quarrel  with  a  pro- German  Greek  king. 

As  it  was,  the  Allies  had  two  dismal  failures  to  their  debit  in 
the  Near  East.  They  had  failed  to  defeat  the  Turks  and  open 
the  Dardanelles.  They  had  also  failed  to  resist  the  Bulgarians 
and  relieve  Serbia.  One  thing  only  was  accomplished :  with 
the  arrival  of  the  Gallipoli  expeditionary  force  at  Salonica  in 
December,  1915,  and  January,  1916,  they  were  enabled  to  pre- 
vent their  Macedonian  failure  from  becoming  a  disaster.  They 
now  had  enough  troops  to  intrench  the  territory  about  Salonica 
and  temporarily  to  hold  Constantine  to  the  observance  of 
''benevolent  neutrality."  As  to  the  future,  they  simply  must 
await  developments.  For  the  present,  the  developments  else- 
where in  the  Near  East  appeared  universally  favorable  to  their 
enemies. 


COMPLETION  OF   GERMAN   MASTERY  OF  THE   NEAR  EAST 

In  October  and  November,  191 5,  Germany  had  taken  two 
important  steps  toward  the  mastery  of  the  Near  East :  the 
fairly  powerful  state  of  Bulgaria  had  become  her  ally,  and 
troublesome  Serbia  had  been  '' chastised"  and  conquered. 
Therefrom  did  many  benefits  accrue  to  the  cause  of  the  Central 
Empires.  In  the  first  place,  Turkey  was  no  longer  isolated 
from  her  allies,  for  express  trains  could  now  be  run  from  Berlin 
to  Constantinople  by  way  of  Belgrade,  Nish,  and  Sofia,  and 
German  domination  of  Turkey  was  strengthened.  Secondly, 
there  were  significant  economic  benefits:  not  only  were  the 
copper  mines  of  Serbia  placed  at  Germany's  disposal,  but  the 
resources  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  and  of  the  Ottoman  Empire 
could  be  freely  drawn  upon  to  replenish  the  stock  of  foodstuffs 
and  of  minerals  in  the  Central  Empires,  while  on  the  other  hand 
a  large  foreign  market  was  at  last  procured,  despite  British 
mastery  of  the  seas,  for  overstocked  German  manufacturers. 
Thirdly,  the  miUtary  advantages  were  obvious:  Turkey  and 
Bulgaria  could  now  easily  be  suppKed  with  guns  and  munitions 
and  enabled  to  utilize  their  man-power  to  the  full  against  the 
Allies;  if  unable  actually  to  conquer  Egypt  and  India,  Turkey 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  135 

could  at  least  so  menace  those  rich  outlying  dominions  of  the 
British  Crown  as  to  frighten  the  EngUsh  and  lead  perhaps  to  a 
weakening  of  British  resistance  on  the  Western  Front.  Finally, 
the  respect  for  Teutonic  military  prowess  on  the  part  of  the  two 
neutral  states  in  the  Near  East,  —  Rumania  and  Greece,  —  had 
been  enormously  increased:  Greece  seemed  quite  dominated 
by  her  pro- German  king;  Rumania  saw  fit  to  open  her  grain- 
markets  to  German  buyers. 

To  guarantee  their  conquest  of  Serbia,  the  Teutons  and  Bul- 
garians forthwith  set  about  the  conquest  of  Montenegro  and  of 
Albania,  for  otherwise  these  mountainous  regions  might  become 
dangerous  rallying  points  for  Serb  and  AlHed  forces.  In  fact, 
in  December,  191 5,  Italian  garrisons  were  occupying  the  Albanian 
ports  of  Avlona  and  Durazzo,  and  as  many  as  50,000  Serbian 
fugitives  were  being  assembled  on  the  Greek  island  of  Corfu 
and  there  reorganized  into  a  fighting  force. 

It  was  a  fairly  easy  task  to  overwhelm  Montenegro's  little 
army  of  30,000  men.  General  von  Koevess,  with  his  Austrian 
army,  in  December  quickly  occupied  the  towns  of  Jakova,  Ipek, 
and  Plevlie,  on  the  eastern  border  of  Montenegro ;  then,  pene- 
trating into  the  interior,  his  converging  columns  defeated  the 
Montenegrins  in  their  last  desperate  stand  in  the  Tara  and  Lim 
valleys,  in  January.  Meanwhile  another  Austrian  detachment, 
attacking  the  western  frontier,  from  the  Austrian  harbor  of 
Cattaro,  built  military  roads  up  the  northern  slopes  of  the 
supposedly  impregnable  but  really  ill-fortified  mountain  strong- 
hold of  Lovtchen,  around  which  wound  the  steep  road  to  the 
capital,  Cettinje,  five  miles  distant.  After  three  days'  bombard- 
ment by  the  Austrian  ships  at  Cattaro,  Mount  Lovtchen  was 
stormed  on  January  10,  1916.  Lovtchen  lost,  the  Montenegrins 
made  no  serious  attempt  to  defend  their  capital,  which  fell  three 
days  later.  King  Nicholas,  after  some  rather  questionable 
negotiations  with  the  Austrians,  made  his  way  to  Italy  and 
thence  to  France,  where  at  Lyons  he  established  his  ^' court." 
His  fellow-Serb  monarch.  King  Peter,  found  a  more  honorable 
refuge  with  the  Allied  army  at  Salonica. 

Hardly  had  the  Montenegrin  capital  fallen  when  General  von 
Koevess  with  his  Austrians  turned  southward  into  Albania. 
Scutari  and  the  port  of  San  Giovanni  di  Medua  were  captured  in 
January,  1916,  and  early  in  February  the  Teutonic  invaders  reached 
the  heights  of  Tirana,  in  central  Albania,  ten  or  fifteen  miles  from 
Durazzo.  In  the  meantime  Bulgarian  forces  had  crossed  into 
Albania  from  southern  Serbia  and  occupied  El  Bassan.     Essad 


136         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Pasha,  the  pro- Ally  chief  of  the  provisional  Albanian  govern- 
ment, could  offer  but  feeble  resistance  to  the  dual  invasion; 
and  on  February  27,  the  Italians  were  obliged  to  evacuate 
Durazzo,  under  fire  of  Austrian  guns.  The  larger  ItaHan  garrison 
at  Avlona,  sixty  miles  south  of  Durazzo,  was  not  dislodged, 
however,  so  that  from  Avlona  as  a  base  the  Italians  were  able  to 
dominate  south-central  Albania,  while  the  northern  and  eastern 
portions  of  the  country  remained  in  Austro-Bulgarian  possession. 

Thus  was  the  new  German  rail  connection  with  Constantinople 
guaranteed  against  any  hostile  attack  from  the  west.  Monte- 
negro and  the  strategically  important  part  of  Albania,  together 
with  Serbia,  were  Teutonic  conquests.  True,  an  Allied  army 
was  intrenched  in  the  vicinity  of  Salonica  and  an  ItaHan  force 
occupied  Avlona,  but  these  forces  were  too  few  to  undertake  a 
successful  counter-offensive :  they  were  fearful  of  a  possible 
attack  on  their  rear  by  the  pro- German  King  Constantine  of 
Greece ;  and  in  front  they  faced  the  stout  Bulgarian  army,  now 
flushed  with  victory  and  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  German  alliance. 
To  the  north,  Rumania  was  isolated  and  wavering  in  her  sym- 
pathy for  the  Entente ;  from  Rumania,  at  least  for  the  present, 
Germany  had  nothing  to  fear.  With  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Anglo-French  force  from  Gallipoli,  moreover,  no  alHed  soldier 
remained  on  the  soil  of  European  Turkey ;  the  Ottoman  Empire 
had  proof  positive  of  the  worth  and  value  of  alliance  with  Ger- 
many, and  news  of  rejoicing  at  Constantinople  could  be  com- 
municated uninterruptedly  to  Berhn  by  express- train  or  by 
telegraph.  By  force  and  by  prestige  Germany  had  mastered 
the  whole  Balkan  peninsula.  The  ''Drang  nach  Osten"  and 
" Mittel-Europa "  were  more  than  words  and  wishes;  they  were 
established  facts. 

It  was  now  that  Asiatic  Turkey  assumed  an  importance  never 
before  recognized.  From  Asia  Minor  Turkish  sovereignty 
reached  out  in  two  directions,  —  eastward  over  Armenia  and 
Mesopotamia  to  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  confines  of  Russian 
and  British  spheres  of  influence  in  Persia,  and  southward  across 
Syria  and  Palestine  to  the  Red  Sea  and  the  borders  of  British 
Egypt.  Two  great  arteries  traversed  these  reaches  of  Turkish 
sovereignty,  the  German-owned  Bagdad  railway  the  one,  and 
the  Mecca  railway  the  other.  By  either  route  powerful  blows 
might  be  struck  against  British  colonial  dominion.  And  to 
strike  such  blows  the  200,000  Turkish  soldiers  who  had  been 
engaged  on  the  Gallipoli  Peninsula  for  nearly  a  year,  were  now 
available.     The    ''Drang    nach    Osten"    suddenly    assumed    a 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  137 

terrible  significance.  It  meant  not  merely  the  attainment  of 
German  mastery  over  the  Balkans  and  Constantinople;  it 
meant  also  the  threat  of  German  mastery  of  Bagdad  and  Mecca 
and  perhaps  of  Egypt  and  India. 

It  was  not  toward  Egypt  and  the  south,  however,  that  the 
European  Turkish  army  of  200,000  men  was  moved  in  January, 
1916,  but  rather  toward  Persia  and  the  east.  It  seemed  prefer- 
able to  employ  the  entire  force  for  a  single  end ;  and  complete 
mastery  of  the  Berlin- to-Bagdad  route  appeared  a  more  service- 
able aim  than  control  of  the  Suez  Canal.  The  difficulties  of 
campaigning  in  the  desert  region  between  Palestine  and  Egypt 
were  much  greater,  as  the  Turkish  defeats  of  19 14  had  indicated, 
than  in  the  mountains  of  Armenia  and  the  fertile  valleys  of 
Mesopotamia.  The  stakes,  too,  were  less  significant :  to  strike 
at  Egypt  might  merely  interrupt  or  inconvenience  British  trade 
with  the  East  Indies ;  on  the  other  hand,  to  secure  the  Persian 
Gulf  would  certainly  threaten  British  India  itself.  Besides, 
while  no  invasion  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  had  yet  been  attempted 
from  Egypt,  both  British  and  Russian  expeditions  were  already 
in  possession  of  parts  of  the  eastern  marches;  completely  to 
rid  the  Ottoman  Empire  of  Allied  armies  required  an  energetic 
campaign  in  Armenia  and  Mesopotamia. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  soon  after  Turkey  entered  the 
Great  War  a  small  expeditionary  force  of  British  regulars  and 
Indian  colonials  had  been  landed  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
as  a  sort  of  outpost  of  defense  for  British  India.  In  the  summer 
of  191 5,  without  a  very  distinct  purpose  and  with  insignificant 
numbers,  the  expedition  pushed  on  more  than  two  hundred  miles 
into  Mesopotamia,  until  on  September  29,  it  occupied  the  town 
of  Kut-el-Amara  on  the  Tigris.  Bagdad,  the  terminus  of  the 
famous  Turco- German  railway,^  only  a  hundred  miles  farther 
up  the  river,  lured  the  British  on,  though  what  they  would  do 
with  Bagdad  once  they  occupied  it  none  could  say.  Perhaps  it 
was  intended  to  offset  in  England  the  chagrin  which  concurrent 
defeats  on  Gallipoli  and  in  Serbia  were  causing.  At  any  rate. 
General  Sir  John  Nixon,  the  commander  of  the  expeditionary 
force,  directed  General  Townshend  to  proceed  to  Bagdad.  On 
November  22,  191 5,  Townshend  attacked  and  carried  a  line  of 
Turkish  defenses  at  Ctesiphon,  only  eighteen  miles  from  the 
fabled  city  of  the  caliphs.     Then  the  tide  turned.     Townshend, 

^  The  actual  rail  terminus  of  the  Bagdad  route  was  at  Samara,  seventy-five 
miles  farther  up  the  river.  Bagdad  was  about  350  miles  from  the  Persian  Gulf 
by  the  shortest  land  route ;  by  river,  it  was  almost  600  miles  distant. 


138         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST  139 

overwhelmed  by  superior  numbers,  was  defeated  with  a  loss  of 
4500  out  of  20,000  men  and  driven  back  to  Kut-el-Amara,  which 
was  promptly  surrounded  and  invested. 

For  the  rehef  of  Townshend  new  British  forces  were  dispatched 
from  India.  Likewise  Russian  columns  were  sent  to  his  relief 
along  the  caravan  route  from  Hamadan  in  Persia.  Such  was 
the  situation  when  Teutonic-Bulgarian  victories  in  Macedonia 
assured  the  security  of  Constantinople  and  when  Anglo-French 
withdrawal  from  Gallipoli  released  almost  a  quarter  of  a  million 
Turks  for  mihtary  use  elsewhere. 

Over  the  Bagdad  railway  were  transported  many  of  these 
Turkish  troops,  down  into  the  valleys  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 
There,  under  the  able  generalship  of  the  German  Marshal  von 
der  Goltz,  they  pressed  the  siege  of  Kut-el-Amara  and  fought 
off  one  relief  expedition  after  another,  whether  British  or  Russian. 
Doubtless  quicker  results  would  have  been  achieved  by  the 
Turks  and  their  German  commander,  had  it  not  been  for  a  great 
danger  which  simultaneously  threatened  them  in  Armenia  and 
which  might  at  any  time  nullify  their  immediate  efforts  in  Meso- 
potamia. 

The  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  who,  as  a  result  of  the  Russian 
defeats  in  Poland,  had  been  transferred  to  the  Caucasus  in 
September,  191 5,  had  been  marshahng  an  army  of  180,000  men 
in  preparation  for  a  big  offensive  in  Armenia  ^  in  the  spring  of 
1916,  but  the  plight  of  the  British  in  Mesopotamia  and  the  re- 
lease of  200,000  Turks  in  January,  191 6,  for  service  in  Asia, 
decided  him  to  attack  forthwith.  The  very  unexpected  char- 
acter of  the  attack,  in  the  dead  of  winter,  with  roads  blocked  by 
snow  and  the  thermometer  registering  from  twenty  to  forty 
degrees  below  zero,  may  account  for  the  ease  with  which  at  the 
outset  the  unsuspecting  Turks  were  routed.     Under  the  actual 

1  Christian  Armenia,  throughout  the  first  eight  months  of  1915,  had  been  the 
scene  of  the  most  wholesale  and  cold-blooded  massacres  in  the  long  history  of  the 
distracted  country.  At  Angora,  Bitlis,  Mush,  Diarbekr,  at  Trebizond  and  Van, 
even  at  distant  Mosul,  many  thousands  were  butchered  like  sheep,  partly  by  the 
gendarmerie,  partly  by  the  mob.  Women  were  violated,  and  they  and  their  chil- 
dren were  shamelessly  sold  to  Turkish  harems  and  houses  of  ill-fame.  Hundreds  of 
wretched  creatures  were  driven  into  the  deserts  and  mountains  to  perish  miserably 
of  starvation.  The  protesting  voices  were  few  and  ineffective :  the  sheikh-ul-Islam 
resigned ;  the  pope  remonstrated ;  the  American  ambassador  at  Constantinople  did 
his  best.  The  Turkish  Government  was  obdurate:  "I  am  taking  the  necessary 
steps,"  its  premier  told  the  American  ambassador,  "to  make  it  impossible  for  the 
Armenians  ever  to  utter  the  word  autonomy  during  the  next  fifty  years."  And  the 
Germans,  quite  used  themselves  to  committing  outrages  in  Belgium,  shuddered 
not  at  the  newest  and  gravest  atrocities  inflicted  by  their  friends,  the  Mohammedan 
Turks,  upon  the  hapless  and  helpless  Christian  Armenians. 


I40         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

command  of  General  Yudenitch,  who  was  intrusted  with  the 
execution  of  the  Grand  Duke's  design,  the  Russian  columns 
advanced  south  westward  from  the  Russo-Turkish  Caucasian 
frontier,  and  about  the  middle  of  January,  191 6,  began  their 
march  through  bleak  mountain  passes  leading  into  Turkish 
Armenia.  The  northern  column  isolated  one  Turkish  corps 
and  drove  it  rapidly  northward  to  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea ; 
the  southern  column  cut  off  two  divisions  from  the  main  Turkish 
army;  while  the  central  column,  following  the  highway  from 
Sarikamish  toward  Erzerum,  inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  on  three 
Turkish  divisions  at  Kuprikeui,  January  16-18,  and  forced  the 
crossing  of  the  Araxes  River  in  the  midst  of  a  blinding  snowstorm. 
Ruthlessly  pursued  by  Cossack  cavalry,  the  Turkish  infantry 
retired  in  disorder,  strewing  the  road  from  Kuprikeui  to  Erze- 
rum with  discarded  rifles,  abandoned  cannon,  and  half-frozen 
stragglers. 

Against  Erzerum,  reputed  to  be  the  strongest  fortified  city  in 
Asiatic  Turkey,  General  Yudenitch  now  massed  his  heavy  ar- 
tillery. By  a  brilliant  feat  of  arms  a  Siberian  division  planted 
its  8-inch  guns  on  supposedly  inaccessible  peaks  commanding 
the  northernmost  of  Erzerum's  many  outlying  forts.  The 
fortified  ridge  just  to  the  east  of  the  city  was  thus  outflanked 
and  successfully  stormed.  Whereupon,  without  waiting  to  test 
the  antiquated  inner  circle  of  redoubts  and  ramparts,  the  German 
staff  officers  and  the  Turkish  garrison  precipitately  evacuated 
Erzerum,  on  February  16,  1916,  leaving  323  guns  and  a  huge 
stock  of  military  supplies  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  victorious 
Russians.  Only  13,000  prisoners  were  taken,  but  the  total 
Turkish  casualties  in  the  whole  campaign  were  estimated  at 
60,000.  The  capture  of  Erzerum  was  rightly  recognized  as  a 
particularly  brilliant  piece  of  strategy. 

Two  days  after  the  fall  of  Erzerum,  the  Turks  lost  the  town  of 
Mush  to  the  southern  column  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas's 
invading  army,  and  on  March  2,  the  important  city  of  Bitlis, 
south  of  Erzerum  and  west  of  Lake  Van.  The  northern  column 
of  the  Russian  forces,  sweeping  the  Black  Sea  coast  from  Batum 
westwards,  captured  Trebizond  on  April  18  and  pushed  on  as 
far  as  Platana.  By  April,  19 16,  the  greater  part  of  Turkish 
Armenia  was  in  Russian  hands,  and  Russia  had  demonstrated 
to  the  world  that  despite  her  sorry  reverses  of  the  preceding 
summer  in  Poland  and  Lithuania  she  was  still  in  the  war  and  was 
still  a  military  power  to  be  reckoned  with.  Optimists  were  not 
lacking  among  Entente  publicists  who  perceived  in  the  Grand 


GERMANY  MASTERS  THE  NEAR  EAST 


141 


Duke  Nicholas's  Armenian  offensive  not  only  certain  relief  to 
the  beleaguered  British  in  Mesopotamia  but  a  probable  aid  to 
Allied  fortunes  in  the  Balkans. 

Again  these  Entente  publicists  were  too  optimistic.  By 
April,  1 916,  the  full  force  of  Turkey's  released  Gallipoli  army 
could  be  brought  to  bear  in  Mesopotamia  and  Armenia.  Vigor- 
ously did  Von  der  Goltz  press  the  siege  of  Kut-el-Amara.  A 
British  relief  detachment  essayed  in  vain  to  break  its  way 
through  the  Turkish  line  at  Sanna-i-yat,  sixteen  miles  east  of 


Mesopotamia  and  Its  Strategic  Position 

Kut.  So  completely  was  Kut-el-Amara  invested  that  no  pro- 
visions could  be  sent  to  the  famished  garrison  except  by  air- 
plane. Nine  tons  of  suppKes  reached  General  Townshend  by 
this  means  in  April,  but  they  were  not  enough.  At  last  the 
pressure  of  hunger  constrained  Townshend  to  surrender,  on 
April  29,  1 91 6,  after  enduring  a  siege  of  143  days,  —  the  only 
example  of  a  protracted  siege,  except  that  of  Przemysl,  in  the 
whole  course  of  the  Great  War.  Depleted  by  fighting  and 
famine,  Townshend's  force  at  the  time  of  surrender  numbered 
only  eight  thousand  men.  Responsibility  for  the  disastrous 
Bagdad  venture  of  the  British  rested  not  so  much  on  General 


142         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Townshend  as  on  General  Nixon  and  the  military  authorities 
in  India.  Public  opinion  concurred  in  the  verdict  of  a  prominent 
British  historian  of  the  war  that  "on  every  ground  of  strategy 
and  common  sense"  Townshend's  expedition  "was  unjustifiable." 
The  fall  of  Kut-el-Amara  enabled  the  Turks  thenceforth  to 
devote  almost  all  their  force  and  energy  to  staying  further  ad- 
vance of  the  Russians  in  Armenia.  It  is  true  that  the  Grand 
Duke  Nicholas  enjoyed  a  brief  good  fortune  in  July,  1916 ;  he 
then  advanced  to,  and  captured,  the  city  of  Erzingian,  no  miles 
west  of  Erzerum.  But  this  marked  the  high  tide  of  Russian 
success.  Thenceforth  the  Russians  in  Asiatic  Turkey  were 
strictly  on  the  defensive,  and  in  August,  BitHs  was  abandoned. 
In  the  meantime  the  Russian  column  which  had  gone  to  the  relief 
of  the  British  in  Mesopotamia  was  routed  by  the  Turks  and 
pursued  back  into  Persia,  past  Kerind,  Kermanshah,  and  Hama- 
dan.  If  the  Turks  had  lost  part  of  Armenia,  they  had  at  least 
saved  Bagdad  and  carried  the  war  into  Persia. 

By  the  summer  of  191 6,  Germany,  with  the  aid  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  Bulgaria,  and  Turkey,  had  transformed  "Mittel- 
Europa"  from  a  dream  to  a  reality  and  had  pushed  far  the 
"Drang  nach  Osten."  She  now  enjoyed  uninterrupted  and 
unmenaced  communication  and  commerce  with  Constantinople 
not  only,  but  far  away,  over  the  two  great  arteries  of  Asiatic 
Turkey,  with  Damascus,  Jerusalem,  and  Mecca,  and  with  Bagdad 
likewise.  Her  vassal  Ottomans  were  actually  striking  into  Persia ; 
they  might  yet  irrupt  into  India.  With  the  exception  of  some 
Italians  in  inaccessible  southern  Albania,  an  Allied  force  at 
precarious  Salonica,  a  Russian  army  in  mountainous  Armenia, 
and  a'handful  of  British  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  Germany 
was  unopposed  in  her  mastery  of  that  whole  vast  region  of  south- 
eastern Europe  and  southwestern  Asia  which  goes  by  the  name 
of  the  Near  East. 

To  her  spectacular  defeat  of  Russia  and  conquest  of  Poland 
was  thus  added  Germany's  equally  spectacular  mastery  of  the 
Near  East.  But  was  Germany  thereby  really  winning  the 
Great  War?  Not  so  long  as  there  was  an  unyielding  Western 
Front.  To  win  the  war,  Germany  simply  must  smash  allied 
resistance  in  France. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
GERMANY  FAILS   TO   OBTAIN   A  DECISION   IN   1916 
TEUTONIC  OPTIMISM  AT  THE  BEGINNING  OF   1916 

If  military  exploits  had  been  as  conclusive  as  they  had  been 
spectacular,  Germany  should  have  won  the  Great  War  in  19 16 
and  imposed  a  Pax  Germanica  upon  the  world.  Certainly  the 
most  spectacular  achievements  at  arms  from  August,  19 14,  to 
January,  19 16,  had  been  Teutonic;  and  German  statesmen  and 
pubHcists  expressed  a  puzzled  inabihty  to  understand  the  stub- 
born refusal  of  the  Entente  Powers  to  sue  for  peace. 

Spectacular  had  been  the  Teutonic  ^'drives."  In  1914  Bel- 
gium and  the  richest  section  of  France  had  been  overrun  and 
occupied  by  German  armies.  In  the  summer  of  191 5  the  Russian 
''steam  roller"  had  been  trundled  back  from  GaHcia  and  from 
Russian  Poland  to  the  Riga-Dvinsk-Tarnopol  line  in  a  badly  bat- 
tered condition.  In  the  autumn  of  191 5  Bulgaria  had  been  won 
over  to  the  Turco-Teutonic  coalition  and  had  helped  Field  Mar- 
shal von  Mackensen  to  conquer  Serbia  and  master  the  Near  East. 

As  a  result  of  these  spectacular  '' drives,"  the  armed  forces  of 
the  Central  Empires  not  only  had  preserved  their  own  lands 
practically  inviolate,  but  had  obtained  extensive  and  valuable 
conquests  at  their  opponents'  expense.  It  was  notable  that 
whereas  not  a  single  Entente  soldier  stood  on  the  soil  of  Germany 
or  Austria-Hungary,  except  a  few  Frenchmen  in  one  corner  of 
upper  Alsace  and  some  ItaKans  on  a  narrow  strip  near  the 
Isonzo,  the  territory  dominated  by  the  Teutonic  alliance  had  been 
expanded  to  embrace  Belgium,  northern  France,  Poland,  parts 
of  Lithuania  and  the  Baltic  Provinces,  Serbia,  Montenegro,  and 
a  portion  of  Albania.  With  the  adherence  of  Turkey  and  Bul- 
garia to  the  Teutonic  Alliance,  and  the  triumphs  of  those  states 
at  the  close  of  191 5,  a  Germanized  Mittel-Europa  could  be  said  to 
stretch  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  from  the  Baltic 
to  the  Red  Sea,  from  Lithuania  and  Ukrainia  to  Picardy  and 
Champagne.  It  was  the  greatest  achievement  in  empire-building 
on  the  continent  of  Europe  since  the  days  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

143 


144        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Moreover,  this  Germanized  Mittel-Europa  appeared  to  possess 
certain  qualities  of  strength  and  endurance  lacking  in  whole  or 
in  part  to  the  hostile  coalition.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a  con- 
federation of  four  states  —  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Bul- 
garia, and  Turkey  —  of  which  the  first  was  head  and  shoulders 
above  the  other  three  in  prowess  and  prestige,  with  the  result 
that  there  was  relative  unity  of  direction  in  the  confederation's 
policies  and  actions.  Berlin  completely  overshadowed  Vienna, 
Sofia,  and  Constantinople ;  and  the  chiefs  of  staff  of  Turkey, 
Bulgaria,  and  Austria-Hungary  had  their  plans  mapped  out  for 
them  and  much  of  their  equipment  supplied  them  by  the  German 
High  Command.  At  a  time  when  BerKn  could  speak  authori- 
tatively for  Mittel-Europa,  the  opposing  Powers  still  act^d  in 
most  respects  independently  of  one  another,  and  in  Entente 
counsels  something  like  equal  weight  had  to  be  given  to  fre- 
quently diverse  decisions  of  Paris,  Petrograd,  London,  and  Rome. 
Unity  of  plan  was  an  important  asset  of  the  Central  Powers  as 
diversity  was  a  liability  of  the  Entente. 

Secondly,  Germanized  Mittel-Europa  occupied  a  geographical 
position  of  great  strategic  value.  It  completely  isolated  Russia 
from  her  Western  Allies,  save  for  most  faulty  transportation 
from  the  White  Sea  or  over  the  Siberian  railway.  Its  extent  was 
sufficiently  wide  and  continuous  and  its  economic  resources  and 
industry  sufficiently  varied  to  give  promise  of  enabhng  its  civil- 
ian population  to  support  life  without  suffering  too  severe 
hardship  from  British  control  of  the  seas.  Its  inclusion  of  Bel- 
gium, northern  France,  and  Poland  provided  it  with  a  wealth  of 
minerals  useful  ahke  to  normal  manufacturing  and  to  abnormal 
production  of  munitions  of  war.  Moreover,  its  compactness  and 
its  possession  of  an  enviable  network  of  railways  admitted  of 
prompt  and  efficient  transfer  of  troops  from  one  frontier  to 
another,  and,  therefore,  of  concentration  against  hostile  Powers 
in  turn.  If  Mittel-Europa  was  a  kind  of  beleagured  empire,  it 
had  at  any  rate  an  advantage  of  interior  fines  of  communication, 
which,  taken  in  conjunction  with  its  advantage  of  unified  com- 
mand, seemingly  compensated  it  for  its  lesser  number  of  poten- 
tial soldiers. 

To  husband  the  supply  of  mifitary  man-power  in  Mittel- 
Europa,  the  German  government  was  already  planning  to  deport 
laborers  from  conquered  districts,  notably  Belgium  ^  and  northern 

^  The  deportation  of  Belgians  was  formally  inaugurated  by  decree  of  the  Ger- 
man military  authorities  on  October  3,  1916.  By  the  beginning  of  December, 
some  hundred  thousand  had  already  been  deported  with  great  cruelty  and  amidst 
heartrending  scenes. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     145 

France,  and  to  compel  them  to  work  in  German  factories,  thereby 
releasing  many  Teutonic  laborers  for  active  service  with  the 
colors.  And  to  add  to  the  resources  of  man-power,  the  Central 
Empires  sought  to  construct  several  dependent  states  out  of 
'' oppressed  nationaHties."  There  was  talk,  for  example,  about 
this  time  of  creating  a  South  Slav  state  under  the  protection  of 
Austria-Hungary  and  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  a  Monte- 
negrin prince  who  would  ally  himself  with  the  Habsburg  family. 
There  was  an  attempt  also  to  sow  dissension  in  Belgium  between 
Walloons  and  Flemings  and  to  encourage  the  latter  to  estabHsh 
a  Flemish  government  under  the  protection  of  Germany.  There 
was  an  effort  likewise  to  arouse  a  desire  in  the  Russian  Baltic 
Provinces  either  for  outright  annexation  to  Prussia  or  for  the 
founding  of  an  autonomous  state  under  a  German  prince ;  and 
there  were  curious  appeals  to  Polish  patriots  to  perceive  in 
Germany  the  staunch  friend  of  Polish  nationaHsm.  Little 
progress  had  so  far  been  made  in  any  of  these  directions,  but  the 
Pan- Germans  and  other  fanatical  advocates  of  Mittel-Europa 
entertained  high  hopes  for  the  future. 

Teutonic  optimists  at  the  beginning  of  19 16  pointed  with 
pride  and  assurance  not  only  to  the  construction  of  mighty 
Mittel-Europa  during  the  preceding  year  and  a  half  and  to  the 
military  discomfiture  in  turn  of  Belgians,  French,  Russians,  and 
Serbs,  but  also  to  what  they  imagined  to  be  a  resulting  war- 
weariness  or  even  poKtical  unrest  in  the  chief  Entente  countries. 
Italy,  it  was  thought,  had  entered  the  war  haltingly,  had  fought 
lamely,  and,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  as  yet  she  had  not  ventured 
to  declare  war  against  Germany,  might  be  expected  to  limp  off 
the  battlefield  if  given  half  a  chance.  Russia  was  cast  down  by 
defeat  and  by  revelations  of  scandalous  inefficiency  and  corrup- 
tion, not  to  say  treason,  among  her  generals  and  her  bureau- 
crats ;  she  was  honeycombed  with  popular  disaffection  and  revo- 
lutionary doctrine.  France,  still  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the 
coalition  hostile  to  Mittel-Europa,  was  believed  to  be  rapidly 
exhausting  her  never  superfluous  man-power;  and  the  immi- 
nence of  a  complete  break  in  French  morale  was  the  lesson  drawn 
by  Germans  from  the  resignation  of  the  Viviani  Cabinet  in 
October,  191 5,  and  from  the  creation,  seemingly  '^  as  a  last  resort," 
of  a  Ministry  of  All  the  Talents,  including  Aristide  Briand  as 
premier,  representatives  of  all  parties  (even  the  Monarchist), 
and  eight  former  prime  ministers.  Apparently  France  had 
reached  the  end  of  her  rope  and  would  make  but  one  more  stand. 

As  for  Great  Britain  the  situation  was  somewhat  different. 


146         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

So  far  Germany  had  been  unable  to  strike  a  direct  blow  at  Eng- 
land and  had  had  to  witness,  without  power  to  prevent,  the 
quick  mastery  of  the  seas  by  the  British  navy  and  the  gradual 
occupation  of  her  own  distant  colonies  by  Allied  forces  ;  and  with 
the  exception  of  a  short-lived  Boer  insurrection  in  South  Africa, 
no  rebelHon  had  as  yet  broken  out  in  any  part  of  the  far-flung 
British  Empire.  Nevertheless,  Germans  at  the  beginning  of 
1916  professed  greater  optimism  than  ever  as  to  the  eventual 
defeat  and  humiliation  of  their  great  maritime  rival.  They 
insisted  that  the  fate  of  colonial  dominion  would  be  settled  on  the 
battlefields  of  Continental  Europe;  and  on  these  battlefields 
were  the  Teutons  not  winning  victory  after  victory  ?  They  in- 
sisted, too,  that  British  mastery  of  the  seas  was  becoming  a  more 
serious  obstacle  to  the  welfare  of  neutral  states  than  the  success 
of  the  Teutonic  Powers,  and  would  surely  prove  in  a  brief  while 
a  veritable  boomerang :  quite  probably  it  would  cause  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries,  the  Netherlands,  Spain,  the  United  States, 
and  the  states  of  Latin  America  to  unite  in  an  Armed  Neutrality 
which  would  recognize  that  ''freedom  of  the  seas"  was  dependent 
on  British  failure  and  German  triumph.  But  even  if  such  an 
auxihary  ''Armed  NeutraHty"  should  not  materiaUze,  Germany 
might  still  confidently  expect  Britain's  vanquishment.  British 
prestige  had  recently  suffered  grievously  from  fiascoes  at  the 
Dardanelles,  in  Serbia,  and  in  Mesopotamia;  and  millions  in 
India,  who  only  wanted  a  favorable  opportunity,  would  presum- 
ably welcome  with  open  arms  the  Turco-German  deliverers  now 
en  route  over  the  Bagdad  Railway  to  Persia  and  the  East.  Be- 
sides, the  glowing  embers  of  Irish  discontent  would  require  only 
a  little  kindling  from  Germany  to  be  fanned  into  consuming  flame. 
And  there  were  signs,  as  interpreted  by  Teutonic  opti- 
mists, which  would  betoken  a  war- weariness  in  England.  The 
war  was  becoming  a  heavy  charge  on  British  wealth.  Whereas 
the  total  pubKc  debt  of  Great  Britain  amounted  in  March,  19 14, 
to  three  and  a  quarter  billions  of  dollars,  it  had  grown  by  war 
credits,  including  those  of  February,  1916,  to  nearly  ten  and  a 
half  billions,  a  sum  which  Premier  Asquith  characterized  as  not 
only  beyond  precedent,  but  actually  beyond  the  imagination  of 
the  financiers  of  England  or  of  any  other  country.  Moreover, 
the  war  was  taking  an  unexpectedly  heavy  toll  of  Britain's 
young  manhood.  British  losses  in  battle  up  to  January,  1916, 
numbered  550,000,  of  whom  128,000  were  dead.  Yet  despite 
such  heavy  toll,  Httle  progress  appeared  to  have  been  made. 
That  the  authorities  themselves  were  dissatisfied  was  evidenced 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     147 

by  the  removal  of  Sir  John  French  ^  from  the  supreme  command 
of  the  British  armies  in  France  in  December,  191 5,  and  his  super- 
session by  Sir  Douglas  Haig.  That  the  British  people  were  as 
dissatisfied  as  their  government,  and  more  apathetic,  was 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  although  the  rate  of  voluntary 
recruiting  for  miHtary  service  had  fallen  very  low  by  October, 
191 5,  the  country  at  large  evinced  much  opposition  to  any  de- 
parture from  the  traditional  British  policy  of  voluntary  enlist- 
ment and  stubbornly  resisted  any  effort  to  substitute  conscrip- 
tion. It  was  only  after  Lord  Derby  had  conducted  a  final  three- 
months'  campaign  for  soldier-volunteers  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  British  Isles  that  the  Parliament  was  induced, 
in  January,  1916,  to  enact  a  conscription  measure,  and  even  this 
was  to  apply  only  to  unmarried  men  in  England,  Scotland,  and 
Wales.^  To  the  Germans  it  was  obvious  that  the  British  armies 
had  reached  their  maximum  size,  under  the  volunteer  system, 
by  the  autumn  of  191 5,  and  that,  inasmuch  as  the  new  con- 
scripts could  not  properly  be  trained  and  rendered  effective 
before  the  summer  of  1916,  the  coming  spring  was  most  oppor- 
tune for  knock-out  blows. 

In  fact,  little  more  need  be  done.  While  more  or  less  subtle 
propagandists  would  be  equipped  with  money  and  letters  of 
introduction,  with  typewriters  and  stenographers,  with  secret 
inks  and  mysterious  formulas  for  bomb-making,  and  turned  loose 
in  neutral  countries  to  win  converts  to  the  precepts  and  prac- 
tices of  Kultur,  the  doughty  .armed  hosts  of  the  Teutonic  coalition 
would  be  provided  with  an  extra  supply  of  howitzers  and  machine- 
guns,  airplanes  and  Zeppelins,  asphyxiating  gases  and  poison  for 
wells,  and  in  one  supreme  effort  on  the  chief  European  fronts 
would  illustrate  the  irresistible  might  of  Kultur  in  practical 
operation.  The  Austro- Germans  already  in  Lithuania  would 
suffice  to  put  the  finishing  touches  on  crumbhng  Russia.  The 
main  armies  of  Austria-Hungary  would  be  mobihzed  in  the 
Trentino  for  a  decisive  drive  into  the  vitals  of  desponding  Italy. 
And  the  German  legions,  now  disengaged  elsewhere,  could  be 
consolidated  into  one  mass  that  at  last  would  break  down  the 
barriers  to  Paris  and  reduce  France  to  her  appropriate  position 
as  a  tertiary  power,  as  a  lesser  satellite  to  the  full,  glorious  orb 
of  Mittel-Europa.  With  Russia,  Italy,  and  France  crushed,  and 
with  despair  and  rebellion  at  home,  what  could  Great  Britain  do  ? 

*  Sir  John  French  was  created  Viscount  French  of  Ypres. 

2  Subsequently,  in  May,  1916,  the  Conscription  Act  was  extended  to  married 
men,  but  Ireland  remained  exempted  from  its  provisions. 


148         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Early  in  191 6  Teutonic  optimism  reached  its  zenith.  There 
was  no  talk  at  BerHn  of  conciliation  or  compromise.  It  was  to  be 
a  victory  overwhelming  and  complete. 

THE  DIFFICULTY  AT  VERDUN:  "THEY   SHALL  NOT   PASS" 

In  planning  war  against  combined  Russia  and  France,  the 
German  General  Staff  had  emphasized  the  necessity  of  crushing 
France  first  and  then  turning  at  leisure  against  slow-moving 
Russia.  But  France  had  not  been  crushed,  in  1914.  The  ever 
memorable  battle  of  the  Marne  had  saved  her  field  army,  her 
capital,  and  her  most  important  fortresses  —  Verdun,  Toul, 
Epinal,  and  Belfort.  And  throughout  19 15,  while  Germany 
was  defeating  Russia,  France  remained  unconquered  and  un- 
daunted. 

At  the  beginning  of  19 16,  therefore,  the  German  General 
Staff,  confronted  with  a  new  situation,  adopted  a  new  plan. 
The  Russians  were  to  be  held  at  bay  far  from  Germany's  eastern 
frontier,  while  on  the  west  a  final  irresistible  blow  would  be  dealt 
the  French.  If  France  could  be  convinced  that  further  sacri- 
fices for  the  recovery  of  Alsace-Lorraine  would  be  futile,  would 
not  a  victorious  peace  then  be  in  sight  for  Germany?  If  this 
train  of  thought  had  not  of  itself  been  sufficiently  cogent  to  the 
German  General  Staff,  the  preparations  which  General  Joffre 
was  making  for  a  great  Anglo-French  Drive  would  have  been 
reason  enough  for  a  German  master-attack  upon  France.  France 
was  training  her  classes  of  19 16  and  191 7,  according  to  War 
Minister  Gallieni's  own  statement,  in  readiness  for  ''the  moment 
when  the  intensive  production  of  armaments  and  of  munitions, 
together  with  the  reenforcement  of  the  battle-Kne  with  new 
masses  of  men,  may  permit  new  and  decisive  efforts."  Great 
Britain,  thanks  to  the  Derby  recruiting  campaign  and  the  Jan- 
uary conscription  bill,  might  be  expected  to  throw  another 
million  of  men  into  France  in  the  spring,  and  her  two  thousand 
government-controlled  factories  were  already  producing  tre- 
mendous and  ever-increasing  supplies  of  munitions.  The  antici- 
pated Anglo-French  offensive  of  1916  would  be  of  unprecedented 
power;  and,  if  Russia  and  Italy  should  attack  simultaneously, 
Falkenhayn,  the  German  Chief  of  Staff,  would  then  be  unable 
to  transfer  troops  to  France  without  inviting  disaster  on  the 
other  fronts.  Accordingly,  it  was  imperative  to  forestall  the 
Anglo-French  offensive  and  if  possible  to  compel  Joffre  to  put 
his  half-trained  reserves  into  the  battle-line  prematurely. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     149 

Strategic  and  political  considerations  made  Verdun  the  first 
objective  of  the  new  German  offensive  against  France.  To  be 
sure,  the  concrete-and-steel  forts  and  the  disappearing  armored 
turrets,  upon  which  French  engineers  had  prided  themselves 
before  the  war,  were  no  longer  considered  of  great  military  value, 
since  13 -inch  howitzers  had  demonstrated  the  frailty  of  Belgian 
fortifications.  But  the  strategic  importance  of  Verdun  lay  less  in 
its  fortifications  than  in  its  position.  The  army  that  possessed 
Verdun  possessed  the  Heights  of  the  Meuse,  a  plateau  or  ridge 
some  five  miles  broad  extending  north  and  south  Hke  a  natural 
palisade,  just  east  of  the  Meuse  river,  on  which  Verdun  is  situ- 
ated. Their  position  on  the  Heights  of  the  Meuse  would  be  of 
incalculable  advantage  to  the  French  when  the  time  came  for  an 
attempt  to  reconquer  Lorraine ;  impetuously  descending  the 
slopes  to  push  the  Germans  back  across  the  plain  of  the  Woevre, 
to  the  eastward,  the  French  troops  would  be  supported  by  heavy 
artillery  mounted  on  hilltops  five  hundred  feet  or  more  above  the 
plain,  while  the  Germans  would  find  it  extremely  difficult  to 
emplace  their  heavy  artillery  on  the  clayey  soil  of  the  Woevre. 
Should  the  French  lose  the  Heights  of  the  Meuse,  not  only  would 
a  French  attack  on  Lorraine  be  out  of  the  question,  but  for 
defensive  purposes  no  new  line  could  be  found  of  such  great 
natural  strength. 

The  poHtical  considerations  which  recommended  a  German 
thrust  at  Verdun  may  be  stated  briefly:  first,  if  France  lost 
Verdun  and  the  Heights  of  the  Meuse,  French  patriots  would 
lose  hope  of  realizing  their  chief  purpose  in  the  war  —  the  recon- 
quest  of  Alsace-Lorraine  —  and  might  consent  to  make  peace ; 
secondly,  inasmuch  as  the  German  Crown  Prince  commanded 
the  Verdun  sector,  a  victory  there  would  enhance  the  prestige  of 
the  heir  to  the  imperial  throne ;  thirdly,  certain  influential  ele- 
ments in  the  Reichstag,  notably  the  Conservative  and  National 
Liberal  parties,  who  at  the  time  were  bitterly  criticizing  the 
Chancellor  Bethmann-Hollweg  for  his  tendency  to  yield  to 
American  remonstrances  against  ruthless  submarine  warfare, 
might  be  silenced  by  a  great  success  like  the  capture  of  Verdun. 

Every  effort  was  made  to  disguise  the  German  preparations 
for  the  intended  move  against  Verdun.  During  January  and 
February,  191 6,  while  corps  after  corps  was  quietly  taking  its 
place  in  the  Crown  Prince's  fines,  while  hundreds  of  4-inch,  7- 
inch,  13-inch,  and  even  17-inch  guns  were  being  massed  in  the 
forests  of  Verdun,  feints  were  being  made  against  a  dozen  other 
sectors  of  the  Anglo-French  front.     An  attack  against  Nieuport 


I50        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  January  24,  and  rumors  of  troop  movements  through  Bel- 
gium, seemed  to  forecast  a  new  drive  toward  Calais;  on  the 
Somme,  the  village  of  Frise  was  captured  by  the  Germans;  in 
Artois,  on  the  bitterly  contested  slopes  of  Vimy  Ridge,  Prince 
Rupprecht  of  Bavaria  delivered  a  series  of  attacks  with  daily 
mine-explosions  and  infantry  assaults ;  at  the  extreme  southern 
end  of  the  Western  Front,  the  French  lines  southwest  of  Altkirch 
were  assailed,  and  15-inch  shells  began  to  drop  into  the  French 
fortress  of  Belfort  Hke  heralds  of  an  approaching  storm.  Mean- 
while the  Crown  Prince  had  concentrated  fourteen  German 
divisions  against  the  French  trenches  eight  and  a  half  miles  north 
of  Verdun.     All  was  ready  for  the  great  effort. 

A  terrific  bombardment  preceded  the  first  attack,  on  February 
21,  191 6.  Never  had  artillery  fire  been  of  such  withering  inten- 
sity. High  explosive  shells  fairly  obliterated  the  French  first- 
line  trenches.  Groves  which  might  have  afforded  shelter  to 
French  artillery  were  wiped  out  of  existence,  trees  being  up- 
rooted and  shattered  into  splinters.  Under  the  terrible  hail  of 
fire,  the  French  soldiers  with  their  machine-guns  and  ''75s"  — 
those  that  escaped  destruction  —  waited  with  grim  determina- 
tion to  make  the  German  infantry  pay  heavily  for  its  advance. 
But  the  Germans  did  not  intend  to  sacrifice  their  men  needlessly. 
No  advance  was  attempted  until  scouts  and  sappers  had  cau- 
tiously stolen  forward  to  make  sure  that  the  bombardment  had 
accompKshed  its  work  of  destruction.  Then,  while  the  German 
guns  lengthened  their  range  so  as  to  place  a  *' curtain  of  fire"  in 
the  rear  of  the  French  trenches,  cutting  off  supphes  and  reen- 
forcements,  the  German  infantry  with  comparative  safety  oc- 
cupied the  ruined  French  first  fine.  This  was  considered  auspi- 
cious. Step  by  step  the  German  howitzers  would  blast  their 
way  into  Verdun;  there  would  be  no  need  of  reckless  infantry 
charges. 

At  first  the  German  offensive  against  Verdun  proceeded  with 
the  mechanical  regularity  of  clockwork.  In  four  days  the  Ger- 
mans progressed  over  four  miles,  until  at  Douaumont  they 
reached  the  first  of  the  outlying  permanent  forts  of  Verdun.  At 
this  time  eighteen  divisions  were  massed  on  a  front  of  four  and 
one-half  miles  from  the  Cote  du  Poivre  (Pepper  Ridge)  to  Hardau- 
mont.  Throughout  the  day  of  February  25  the  German  infan- 
try, wave  upon  wave,  surged  up  the  snow-covered  slopes  of  the 
Douaumont  Hill,  only  to  recede  under  the  murderous  fire  of 
French  mitrailleuses  and  75-milhmeter  guns.  Towards  evening 
a  supreme  assault,  viewed  from  a  distant  hill  by  the  Emperor 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     151 

himself,  carried  Fort  Douaumont.  The  fort  itself  was  a  crum- 
bling heap  of  ruins,  but  the  hilltop  (388  meters  high)  on  which  it 
was  situated  overlooked  all  the  surrounding  country  and  com- 
manded a  clear  view  of  Verdun,  less  than  five  miles  to  the  south- 
west. If  the  French  could  be  hurled  back  from  this  their 
strongest  natural  position,  before  heavy  reenforcements  arrived 
and  while  the  defense  was  still  suffering  from  the  initial  shock 
of  the  German  onslaught,  Verdun's  fate  would  be  almost 
certain. 

But  French  reenforcements,  which  had  been  withheld  until 
General  Joff re  was  sure  the  Verdun  attack  was  not  simply  another 
feint,  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time,  and  with  them  arrived  General 
Petain,  on  the  very  day  of  Fort  Douaumont's  fall.  Petain  in- 
fused new  energy  into  the  demoralized  defense.  He  had  already 
demonstrated  his  fighting  temper  in  the  battle  of  Artois  (spring 
and  summer  of  191 5)  and  in  the  Champagne  offensive  (Septem- 
ber, 191 5) ;  before  the  war  he  had  been  an  inconspicuous  colonel, 
one  of  the  many  CathoKc  army  officers  who  could  scarce  hope  for 
promotion  while  anti-clerical  politics  held  sway  in  the  army ;  in 
actual  warfare,  however,  his  abiHty  could  not  be  ignored  and  he 
had  speedily  won  the  rank  of  general  and  the  reputation  of  being 
one  of  Joffre's  most  brilhant  subordinates. 

On  February  26,  1916,  the  morning  after  his  arrival,  Petain 
ordered  a  counter-attack.  By  an  impetuous  charge  the  Ger- 
mans were  swept  back  down  the  hillside,  and,  although  a  German 
regiment  remained  ensconced  in  Fort  Douaumont,  possession  of 
the  fort  was  useless  without  command  of  the  approaches  and 
communicating  trenches.  For  four  days  more  the  battle  raged 
incessantly  about  the  fort  and  village  of  Douaumont,  until  on 
March  i  the  German  attack  slackened.  That  brief  lull  marked 
the  passing  of  the  crisis.  The  impact  of  the  German  drive  had 
been  broken  before  a  real  breach  had  been  made  in  the  vital 
defenses  of  Verdun;  the  French  had  recovered  from  their  sur- 
prise, and  now  with  heavy  reenforcements  and  ample  supplies, 
which  an  endless  train  of  motor  lorries  was  ceaselessly  pouring 
into  Verdun,  they  were  ready  to  dispute  every  inch  of  ground. 

During  the  first  phase  of  the  battle,  from  February  21  to  29, 
the  brunt  of  the  German  drive  had  been  borne  by  the  French 
lines  on  the  Heights  of  the  Meuse,  where  the  Germans  had  bat- 
tered their  way  four  miles  southward  to  the  Douaumont-Pepper 
Ridge  position.  Even  more  ground  had  been  gained,  though  at 
smaller  cost,  in  the  Woevre  plain,  directly  east  of  Verdun,  where 
the  French  had  been  pushed  back  some  six  miles.     On  March  i, 


152  A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

however,  the  French  were  standing  as  firmly  at  Eix  and  Fresnes, 
east  of  Verdun,  as  at  Pepper  Hill  and  Douaumont,  north  of  the 
city. 

So  long  as  there  was  hope  of  capturing  Verdun  with  a  moderate 
sacrifice  of  life,  miUtary  as  well  as  political  wisdom  justified  the 
German  offensive.  But  when  the  French  Hnes,  instead  of  crump- 
ling fatally,  stiffened  resolutely,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  offensive 
was  altered.  Henceforth  the  Crown  Prince  would  be  hurling 
his  men  against  carefully  prepared,  cunningly  concealed,  and 
adequately  manned  defenses.  As  the  French  brought  up  their 
heavy  guns,  the  German  advantage  in  artillery  would  dwindle 
and  disappear.  Victory  could  be  won  neither  swiftly  enough  to 
terrify  France  nor  cheaply  enough  to  profit  Germany.  Yet  the 
German  General  Staff  decided  to  purchase  victory,  cost  what  it 
might.  Discontinuance  of  the  battle  after  the  check  at  Douau- 
mont would  be  a  humiHating  confession  of  defeat  and  a  severe 
blow  to  the  prestige  of  German  arms ;  the  name  of  the  Crown 
Prince,  already  associated  with  failure  in  the  battle  of  the  Marne, 
would  be  brought  into  further  disrepute ;  and  the  political  situa- 
tion of  the  German  government  would  be  extremely  embar- 
rassing as  it  attempted  to  face  the  scathing  criticism  of  the 
Tirpitz  party,  which  demanded  ruthless  submarine  warfare,  and 
the  bitter  complaints  of  an  independent  faction  of  the  Socialists, 
who  voiced  the  desire  of  a  growing  number  of  German  civilians 
for  food  and  for  peace.  The  battle  of  Verdun,  therefore,  must 
continue. 

In  the  second  phase  of  the  struggle  for  Verdun,  interest  shifted 
to  the  west  bank  of  the  Meuse.  Prior  to  March  i ,  there  had 
been  little  fighting  except  on  the  narrow  front,  six  or  seven  miles 
in  length,  where  the  French  line  straddled  the  Heights  of  the 
Meuse,  north  of  Verdun ;  the  twelve-mile  French  sector  east  of  the 
Heights,  it  is  true,  had  been  forced  out  of  the  Woevre  plain ;  but 
west  of  the  Meuse  only  artillery  had  been  active.  Owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  hills  west  of  the  Meuse  were  much  less  imposing  than 
those  on  the  other  bank  —  for  example,  Dead  Man's  Hill,  the  key 
of  the  situation  on  the  western  bank,  was  280  feet  lower  than 
Douaumont  —  an  advance  there  would  be  easier  than  east  of  the 
Meuse ;  furthermore,  it  seemed  imperative  to  push  the  line  west 
of  the  Meuse  at  least  as  far  south  as  the  line  east  of  the  river, 
since  the  French  guns  on  the  hills  west  of  the  Meuse  were  now  in 
a  position  to  rake  the  German  line  on  the  opposite  bank  from  the 
flank  and  rear  and  by  their  fire  to  prevent  an  effective  assault  on 
Pepper  Ridge.     If  the  Crown  Prince  was  to  turn  the  Douaumont 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     153. 

position  by  capturing  Pepper  Ridge,  the  menace  from  across  the 
Meuse  must  be  removed. 

So  on  March  2,  1916,  the  second  phase  of  the  battle  of 
Verdun  began  with  an  attack  upon  the  French  positions  west  of 
the  Meuse.  By  this  time,  however,  the  element  of  surprise  con- 
tributed nothing  to  the  German  advance ;  the  French  were  pre- 
pared to  defend  with  dogged  determination  every  inch  of  ground. 
For  nearly  two  weeks  the  Germans  struggled  to  master  Goose 
Ridge,  immediately  west  of  the  Meuse ;  for  three  weeks  more  they 
spent  munitions  and  Hfe  recklessly  in  efforts  to  dominate  l)ead 
Man's  Hill,  farther  west.  From  March  17  to  April  8,  the  Ger- 
man advance  amounted  to  one  mile  on  a  six-mile  front.  Still 
determined  to  conquer  at  any  cost,  the  Crown  Prince  exhausted 
nine  infantry  divisions  in  a  ferocious  assault  against  the  whole 
French  Hne  west  of  the  Meuse,  April  9-1 1.  Yet  in  spite  of  the 
frightful  carnage.  Dead  Man's  Hill  could  not  be  conquered. 

Not  only  west  of  the  Meuse,  but  east  of  the  river  too,  the 
Germans  during  March  and  April  expended  their  strength  in 
heroic  efforts,  but  without  decisive  results.  Ruined  Douaumont 
changed  hands  several  times,  and  the  Germans  got  as  far  as  the 
village  of  Vaux  —  but  no  farther.  While  both  sides  lay  ex- 
hausted in  the  region  of  Vaux  and  Douaumont,  the  Germans 
with  indefatigable  energy  prepared  to  launch  a  new  attack  upon 
Pepper  Ridge.  Their  howitzers  rained  high-explosive  shells  on 
the  ridge  until  it  seemed  that  the  French  trenches  must  be  anni- 
hilated ;  then  confidently  on  April  18  twelve  German  regiments 
made  the  assault;  but  from  the  shattered  French  trenches  the 
machine-guns  spoke  with  so  deadly  an  effect  that  the  Germans 
recoiled  in  dismay. 

The  repulse  at  Pepper  Ridge  on  April  18  and  at  Dead  Man's 
Hill  on  April  9-1 1  concluded  the  second  phase  of  the  great  battle 
for  Verdun.  French  and  British  military  critics  already  de- 
clared that  ''the  battle  of  Verdun  is  won."  True,  throughout 
April  and  May  each  daily  bulletin  gave  news  of  a  mine  exploded, 
a  gas-attack  resisted,  a  trench  gained  by  the  use  of  jets  of  Hquid 
fire,  a  clash  of  grenadiers,  or  a  duel  of  artillery.  But  having 
tested  the  French  lines  on  both  sides  of  the  Meuse,  the  Germans 
at  last  knew  that  Verdun  could  not  be  gained  by  a  few  sledge- 
hammer blows,  and  henceforth  they  fought  not  with  the  confident 
expectation  of  victory,  but  rather  with  the  fury  of  baffled  but 
indomitable  determination. 

Towards  the  end  of  May,  1916,  the  third  phase  of  the  battle 
of  Verdun  was  inaugurated  by  desperate  and  most  sanguinary 


.154         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


onslaughts  on  each  side  of  the  Meuse.  The  cHmax  of  the  cam- 
paign on  the  western  bank  was  reached  on  May  29,  when  sixty 
German  batteries  of  heavy  artillery  poured  a  torrent  of  high- 
explosive  shells,  continuing  twelve  hours,  on  the  whole  French 


§J}M^:- 


line  from  Cumieres  to  Avocourt,  and  a  new  infantry  charge  was 
launched  in  which  at  least  five  fresh  divisions  participated.  The 
French  had  been  expelled  from  Cumieres,  and  the  summit  of 
Dead  Man's  Hill  had  been  gained,  but  the  French  still  clung 
tenaciously  to  the  southern  slopes  of  the  hill. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     155 

Simultaneously,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Meuse,  the  Germans 
foiled  an  attempt  of  General  Nivelle  ^  to  secure  Douaumont  and 
then  moved  in  force  against  Fort  Vaux.  After  a  struggle  of 
inconceivable  fury  the  Germans  captured  Fort  Vaux  on  June  7 
and  thus  obtained,  with  Fort  Douaumont,  two  positions  in  the 
outer  ring  of  Verdun's  permanent  fortifications.  Of  the  numer- 
ous remaining  obstacles,  the  next  would  be  Fort  Souville  or 
rather  the  hill  (precisely  the  same  altitude  as  Douaumont)  upon 
which  Fort  Souville  was  situated,  not  quite  two  miles  southwest 
of  Fort  Vaux  and  a  little  more  than  two  miles  directly  south  of 
Fort  Douaumont.  Fort  Souville  might  be  approached  either 
from  the  north,  by  way  of  Thiaumont  Redoubt  and  Fleury,  or 
from  the  northwest,  by  way  of  Damloup  Redoubt.  The  Ger- 
mans during  June  tried  both  of  these  approaches.  Thiaumont 
Redoubt  and  Fleury  were  gained  on  June  23-24,  but  were  sub- 
sequently recaptured  by  the  French;  similarly,  Damloup  Re- 
doubt was  captured,  recaptured,  and  captured  again.  Through- 
out July  and  August  Fleury  and  the  two  redoubts  repeatedly 
changed  hands.  Never  did  the  Germans  reach  Fort  Souville. 
Never  were  they  able  to  drive  the  French  from  the  southern 
slopes  of  Dead  Man's  Hill.  Never  was  the  hold  of  the  French 
on  Verdun  reHnquished. 

From  February  to  July,  1916,  the  Germans  had  gained  about 
130  square  miles  of  battle-scarred  French  territory  north  and 
east  of  Verdun,  with  two  demolished  forts  and  desolate  ruins 
of  two-score  villages.  As  the  price  of  this  gain,  probably  as  many 
as  three  hundred  thousand  German  soldiers  had  laid  down  their 
lives,  or  fallen  wounded  on  the  field  of  battle,  or  been  captured 
by  the  French.  The  Crown  Prince  had  played  for  high  stakes 
and  had  lost.  The  great  plan  to  take  Verdun  by  surprise,  to 
strike  consternation  into  the  heart  of  the  French  nation,  to 
forestall  an  Anglo-French  offensive,  had  obviously  gone  wrong ; 
and  Germany  faced  the  discouraging  fact  that  her  tremendous 
sacrifices  had  failed  of  their  chief  purpose,  while  France,  despite 
most  serious  losses,  rejoiced  in  the  consciousness  that  the  battle- 
cry  of  her  heroic  sons  at  Verdun,  ^'Passeront  pas!"  C'They 
shall  not  pass!")  had  been  realized  in  truth.  Petain's  holding 
battle  at  Verdun  ranks  with  Joffre's  holding  battle  at  the  Marne 
as  one  of  the  decisive  conflicts  of  the  Great  War. 

^  Nivelle  had  succeeded  Petain  in  immediate  command  of  the  French  defense  at 
Verdun  early  in  May,  when  Petain  was  promoted  to  the  command  of  the  whole 
army-group  on  the  Soissons- Verdun  sector  of  the  Anglo-French  front. 


iS6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

THE  DIFFICULTY  IN  THE  TRENTINO:  ITALY'S  DEFENSE 

While  the  Germans  were  still  pounding  at  Verdun,  the  Aus- 
trians  undertook  an  offensive  against  Italy.  The  Austrians 
elected  to  deHver  their  attack  in  the  difficult  mountain-country 
of  the  Trentino  rather  than  in  the  Isonzo  valley,  for  two  reasons  : 
first,  the  Italian  hne  was  less  strongly  held  on  the  Trentino  front ; 
and,  secondly,  an  offensive  on  the  Isonzo,  even  if  successful, 
would  only  drive  the  main  Italian  army  back  into  Italian  ter- 
ritory, whereas  a  quick  thrust  from  the  Trentino  into  the  Vene- 
tian plain  might  cut  the  communications  and  possibly  compel 
the  capitulation  of  the  Italian  army  of  the  Isonzo. 

Up  to  May,  1916,  there  had  been  no  large-scale  fighting  in  the 
Trentino.  Comparatively  small  detachments  of  the  ItaUan 
Alpini  had  penetrated  a  Httle  way  into  the  inhospitable  uplands 
of  the  western  Trentino  border  through  several  mountain  passes. 
In  the  south,  the  Italians  had  progressed  fifteen  miles  up  the 
Adige  River  to  the  outskirts  of  Rovereto,  about  half  the  dis- 
tance from  the  frontier  to  Trent.  In  the  east,  the  Italian  line 
crossed  the  Val  d'Astico  not  far  from  the  border,  and  then  cut 
more  deeply  into  Austrian  territory  west  of  Borgo,  in  the  Val 
Sugana. 

The  Italian  line  in  the  Trentino  was  hardly  more  than  a 
broken  series  of  detached  outposts  pushed  unsystematically  into 
the  enemy's  country.  Even  for  defensive  purposes  it  was 
dangerously  weak.  The  exposed  saHent  southeast  of  Rovereto 
might  easily  be  crushed  between  attacks  from  the  west  and 
north :  no  good  second-Hne  position  had  been  prepared ;  and 
some  portions  of  the  front  were  poorly  munitioned  and  all  parts 
were  gravely  short  of  artillery. 

Against  the  ill-prepared  ItaHan  lines  in  the  Trentino,  on  a 
front  of  less  than  thirty  miles,  the  Austrians  quietly  concen- 
trated 400,000  men  and  a  mass  of  artillery,  ready  to  overwhelm 
the  Italians  by  sheer  weight  of  number  and  metal.  After  a 
terrific  bombardment  on  May  14,  1916,  the  Austrian  infantry 
rushed  forward  all  along  the  front  from  Rovereto  to  Borgo,  the 
brunt  of  the  attack  being  toward  the  center  in  the  general  direc- 
tion of  the  Italian  cities  of  Asiago  and  Arsiero.  At  first  the 
Austrians  were  highly  successful.  The  Italians  retreated  in  such 
confusion  that  in  several  instances  whole  regiments  lost  their 
way  and  valuable  strategic  points  were  sacrificed  without  a 
struggle.  Hurriedly  General  Cadorna  rushed  to  the  rescue  and 
attempted  to  reform  the  line  of  the  Trentino  army.     The  Aus- 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     157 

trians,  relentlessly  pursuing,  descended  the  Posina  valley  to 
Arsiero  (seven  miles  inside  the  Italian  border)  and,  to  the  east, 
came  down  the  Val  d'Assa  as  far  as  Asiago  (eight  miles  inside 
the  border),  which  fell  on  May  28.  The  Italian  troops  that 
should  have  occupied  the  commanding  height  of  Pria  Fora  (two 
miles  south  of  Arsiero)  on  the  night  of  May  29  lost  their  way  in 
the  dark  and  fell  back  farther  south  to  the  inferior  height  of 
Monte  Ciove.  From  Pria  Fora,  at  an  elevation  of  nearly  5000 
feet,  the  victorious  Austrians  could  look  down  upon  Schio  and 
Thiene,  less  than  ten  miles  to  the  southeast,  where  the  foothills 
of  the  Venetian  Alps  gave  place  to  a  gently  sloping  plain,  nowhere 
more  than  500  feet  above  sea-level.  Only  twenty  miles  from 
Arsiero  lay  the  city  of  Vicenza;  twenty  miles  farther,  Padua; 
and  another  twenty  miles  across  the  plain  would  bring  the 
invader  to  Venice  and  cut  off  the  whole  Italian  army  on  the 
Isonzo.  Exultantly  the  Austrian  order  of  the  day,  June  i, 
announced  that  only  one  small  mountain  ridge  (Ciove)  remained 
to  be  crossed  before  the  army  of  invasion  could  swoop  down  into 
the  Venetian  plain. 

Fully  conscious  of  the  peril,  General  Cadorna  ten  days  pre- 
viously had  ordered  the  concentration  of  every  available  reserve 
at  Vicenza,  and  now  on  June  3  he  issued  to  the  troops  holding 
the  line  south  of  Arsiero  the  famous  order,  "Remember  that 
here  we  defend  the  soil  of  our  country  and  the  honor  of  our  army. 
These  positions  are  to  be  defended  to  the  death."  And  they 
were  defended.  On  Monte  Ciove,  the  key-position,  one  gallant 
Italian  brigade  held  fast  though  4000  of  its  original  6000  men 
were  either  killed  or  wounded.  Likewise  on  Monte  Pasubio, 
which  had  halted  the  right  wing  of  the  advancing  Austrians, 
the  Italians  stood  unflinchingly  against  odds  of  four  to  one  under 
a  nerve-shattering  bombardment.  For  three  weeks  Austrian 
howitzers  deluged  Pasubio  with  high  explosives ;  for  three  weeks 
dense  masses  of  Austrian  infantry  were  hurled  against  the 
Italian  left  flank ;  still  the  Italian  defense  stood  firm.  On 
June  18  the  Austrians  made  their  final  effort  when  they 
flung  twenty  battalions  against  the  Italian  right  flank,  south 
of  Asiago,  and  failed.  The  Austrian  offensive  was  definitely 
checked. 

As  the  result  of  a  month's  exertions,  the  Austrians  had  in- 
flicted serious  losses  on  the  Italian  army;  they  had  captured  a 
large  number  of  big  guns,  which  the  Italians  could  ill  spare ;  they 
had  recovered  270  miles  of  Austrian  territory;  they  had  con- 
quered  230  square  miles  of  Italian  territory;  and  they  had 


k 


158         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

improved  their  strategic  position.^  On  the  other  hand,  the  Aus- 
trians  had  failed  to  achieve  their  main  purpose;  Vicenza  and 
Venice  were  still  in  Italian  hands  and  the  Italian  army  of  the 
Isonzo  was  still  intact  and  ready  to  resume  the  offensive  in 
Istria.  Nay  more,  the  Austrians  in  putting  forth  their  great 
effort  against  Italy  had  so  seriously  weakened  their  Eastern 
front  that  Russia  was  able  to  reorganize  her  army  and  invade 
Galicia  and  Bukowina.  German  failure  at  Verdun  and  Aus- 
trian failure  before  Vicenza  were  synchronous  blows  at  Teutonic 
optimism ;  ^  they  were  sure  signs  that  the  Central  Powers  were 
doomed  not  to  win  a  victorious  peace  in  191 6. 

THE  DIFFICULTY  IN  IRELAND  :    SUPPRESSION  OF  REBELLION 

At  the  very  time  when  the  Austrians  were  preparing  to  invade 
Italy  and  when  the  Germans  were  making  their  supreme  effort 
against  Verdun,  Teutonic  hopes  of  rebellion  within  the  British 
Empire  promised  to  reach  fruition.  In  April,  191 6,  a  republic 
was  proclaimed  in  Ireland  and  fighting  took  place  in  Dublin. 

The  trouble  in  Ireland  was  traceable  to  the  bitter  five-hundred- 
year  old  feud  between  Englishmen  and  Irishmen,  and  particu- 
larly to  British  treatment  of  Ireland  since  19 10.  Between  19 10 
and  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  in  19 14  the  Nationalist  Party 
in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  representing  three-fourths  of 
the  population  of  Ireland,  had  taken  nice  advantage  of  the 
exigencies  of  English  politics  to  wring  from  the  existing  Liberal 
government  a  measure  of  limited  home  rule  for  Ireland.  But 
even  before  the  enactment  of  the  measure  Irish  Unionists  (descen- 
dants of  Scotch-English  settlers  in  Ulster)  had  smuggled  in  arms 
from  Germany  and  had  prepared  to  resist  Home  Rule  by  force. 
The  situation  thus  created  might  have  been  handled  by  the 
British  Government  in  either  of  two  ways,  according  to  its 
judgment  of  Ulster :  if  Ulster  was  serious  and  sober  in  its  oppo- 
sition, then  it  might  behoove  the  Government  to  withdraw  the 
Home  Rule  Bill  altogether  and  seek  some  other  means  of  dealing 
with  the  Irish  question;  or,  if  Ulster  was  merely  factious  and 
unreasonable,  then  it  would  seem  to  be  the  Government's  duty 

^  Premier  Salandra,  as  the  result  of  an  adverse  vote  in  the  Italian  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  resigned  in  June,  19 16,  and  a  new  coalition  ministry  was  formed  under 
Paolo  Boselli  with  Baron  Sonnino  still  in  charge  of  foreign  affairs. 

2  It  was  a  curious  coincidence  that  just  as  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick  William 
of  Germany  commanded  the  offensive  against  Verdun,  so  the  offensive  in  the  Tren- 
tino  was  directed  by  the  heir-apparent  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  crown  —  the 
'  Archduke  Charles. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     159 

promptly  to  arrest  Sir  Edward  Carson,  the  Ulster  leader,  and  to 
crush  the  opposition.  Mr.  Asquith's  Government  did  neither. 
It  allowed  Ulster  to  raise  and  discipline  a  highly  efficient  army, 
and  it  went  on  with  its  Home  Rule  Bill.  The  Nationalists  very 
naturally  claimed  the  same  right  to  arm  and  drill  their  people, 
and  the  National  Volunteers  came  into  being.  The  result  was 
that  in  July,  19 14,  Ireland  was  split  up  into  two  armed  camps, 
and  the  Government  halted  between  two  resolutions :  on  the  one 
hand,  the  Home  Rule  Bill  must  be  enacted ;  on  the  other  hand, 
*' Ulster  must  not  be  coerced." 

When  the  Great  War  actually  came,  the  Home  Rule  Bill  was 
placed  on  the  statute-book,  but  its  operation  was  suspended ; 
and  temporarily  Ulsterite  and  Nationalist  leaders  vied  with  one 
another  in  pledging  Ireland's  loyal  support  to  the  Allied  cause. 
As  time  went,  on,  however,  the  old  distrust  and  misunderstanding 
reawoke.  The  Ulsterites  became  more  outspoken  that  the 
Home  Rule  Act  must  never  be  put  in  operation,  while  the  Nation- 
alists grew  more  impatient  of  delay.  When  in  May,  191 5,  Mr. 
Asquith  admitted  to  his  cabinet  several  Unionists,  including  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  it  was  apparent  that  the  English  Liberals  were 
no  longer  dependent  on  Irish  Nationalists  and  that  Home  Rule 
had  been  pushed  into  the  limbo  of  forgotten  dreams.  Henceforth 
the  bulk  of  the  Irish  people  began  to  lose  interest  in  mere  limited 
autonomy  and  faith  in  their  Parliamentary  party ;  gradually  they 
transferred  their  interest  to  demands  for  full  independence  and 
their  faith  to  a  hitherto  unimportant  faction  —  Sinn  Fein. 

Sinn  Fein  —  which  means  "Ourselves" —  was  a  body  founded 
in  1905  for  purposes  not  unlike  those  of  the  Gaelic  League  which 
preceded  it  by  a  few  years.  The  central  idea  of  the  society  was 
that  the  Irish  people  should  recover  and  assert  their  nationality 
in  every  possible  way,  in  language,  in  dress,  and  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Irish  resources  and  industries.  But  unlike  the  Gaelic 
League,  whose  program  was  exclusively  educational,  the  scope 
of  the  Sinn  Fein  was  political  as  well.  It  opposed  Irish  repre- 
sentation in  the  British  Parliament  and  attacked  alike  the 
Unionists  and  the  Nationalists,  accusing  the  latter  of  being  tools 
of  the  English  Liberal  Party.  It  had  no  patience  with  the  Home 
Rule  plan.  It  held  that  Ireland  should  not  wait  for  Home  Rule 
as  a  gift  from  the  British  Parliament,  but  should  start  measures 
of  republican  independence  on  her  own  account.  Self-reliance 
was  the  Sinn  Fein's  motto.  At  the  outset  it  had  been  a  harmless 
academic  movement,  much  frowned  upon  by  Nationalist  leaders 
like  Redmond  and  Devlin,  and  drawing  its  strength  chiefly  from 


i6o        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  enthusiasts  of  Irish  art  and  poetry,  but  its  prestige  had  in- 
creased in  1913  through  its  activity  in  recruiting  volunteers  for  de- 
fense against  the  Ulsterites,  and  the  seeming  collapse  of  the  Home 
Rule  project  in  191 5  furthered  its  popularity.  As  the  Ulsterites  ob- 
tained a  preponderant  voice  in  the  councils  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment disappointment  and  disaffection  flourished  in  other  parts  of 
Ireland ;  and  as  the  Nationalists  lost  hope,  Sinn  Fein  gained  faith 
and  followers. 

Sinn  Fein  was  frankly  revolutionary,  and,  though  not  strictly 
pro-German,  was  quite  as  willing  to  make  an  alliance  with 
Germany  as  with  any  other  country  if  thereby  an  independent 
republic  might  be  established  in  Ireland.  Throughout  191 5 
negotiations  of  a  somewhat  obscure  character  were  carried  on 
between  Germany  and  Sinn  Fein  agents,  in  Germany  and  also 
in  the  United  States;  funds  were  collected  and  military  plans 
discussed.  Sir  Roger  Casement,  formerly  a  British  consular 
agent  and  now  a  devoted  disciple  of  the  Sinn  Fein,  spent  several 
months  in  Germany,  visiting  prisoners'  camps  in  an  attempt 
(for  the  most  part  unsuccessful)  to  form  an  Irish  Brigade,  and 
concerting  measures  with  the  German  Government  for  abetting 
a  revolt  in  Ireland.  It  was  arranged  that  German  submarines 
should  transport  Casement  and  a  goodly  store  of  arms  and  muni- 
tions to  the  Irish  coast  and  that,  simultaneously  with  their  land- 
ing, the  Sinn  Fein  leaders  at  Dublin  should  proclaim  the  republic 
and  mobilize  the  Irish  Volunteers;  other  German  submarines 
would  do  their  best  to  prevent  England  from  reenforcing  her 
garrison  in  Ireland,  and  German  propagandists  along  the  Western 
Front  would  strive  to  secure  desertion  of  Irish  soldiers  from 
British  regiments.  It  may  have  been  a  wild  gambler's  chance 
from  the  German  standpoint,  but  in  any  event  Germany  had 
nothing  to  lose  by  Irish  failure,  and  by  Irish  success  Great 
Britain  might  lose  heavily. 

On  the  evening  of  April  20,  191 6,  a  German  vessel,  disguised 
as  a  Dutch  trader  and  laden  with  arms,  together  with  a  German 
submarine,  arrived  off  the  Kerry  coast  of  Ireland,  not  far  from 
Tralee.  Detected  by  the  British  patrol,  the  vessel  was  sunk  and 
its  crew  captured.  Meanwhile  Sir  Roger  Casement  and  two 
companions  were  put  ashore  from  the  submarine  in  a  collap- 
sible boat,  but,  without  arms  and  unmet  by  the  local  Sinn  Feiners, 
Casement  was  arrested  early  on  Good  Friday  morning,  April 
21,  and  taken  to  England.^ 

^  He  was  subsequently  tried  for  high  treason  and  condemned  to  death,  and  was 
executed  on  August  3. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916    161 

The  capture  of  Casement  confused  the  Sinn  Feiners.  General 
MacNeill,  their  mihtary  chief,  hastily  canceled  the  projected 
Easter  manoeuvers  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  and  the  leaders  at 
Dublin  were  thus  deprived  of  immediate  effective  aid.  Never- 
theless the  standard  of  revolt  was  raised.  On  Easter  Monday, 
April  24,  armed  bands  seized  St.  Stephen's  Green,  the  post  office, 
and  other  places  in  the  center  of  Dublin.  At  the  same  time  a 
proclamation  was  issued  asserting  the  right  of  Ireland  to  national 
existence  and  announcing  the  establishment  of  a  republic,  based 
on  adult  suffrage  and  complete  civil  and  religious  Hberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity.  The  flag  of  the  new  state  —  green 
and  gold  —  was  unfurled,  and  a  provisional  government  was 
set  up  under  Padraic  Pearse  as  president  and  James  Connolly  as 
commandant. 

After  a  sharp  struggle  in  which  many  were  killed  and  wounded, 
including  a  considerable  number  of  civilians,  the  British  forces, 
under  General  Sir  John  Maxwell,  who  had  formerly  commanded 
in  Egypt,  succeeded  in  overpowering  the  rebels,  though  not  until 
artillery  and  machine-guns  had  been  brought  into  action.  On 
April  29,  Provisional  President  Pearse  ordered  unconditional 
surrender,  in  order  to  prevent  useless  slaughter,  and  on  the  next 
day  the  rebels  laid  down  their  arms.  In  Dublin  300  Irish  had 
been  killed  and  1800  made  prisoners.  The  British  troops  suf- 
fered 521  casualties.  The  punishment  inflicted  by  the  British 
authorities  was  extremely  severe.  Pearse  and  fourteen  others 
were  tried  by  court-martial  and  shot;  more  were  condemned  to 
long  terms  in  prison ;  several  hundred  were  deported  to  England 
and  gathered  in  detention-camps;  and  as  many  as  3000  were 
arrested. 

Germany  gained  nothing  by  the  abortive  Irish  rebellion,  and 
Great  Britain  was  not  vitally  handicapped  in  her  prosecution  of 
the  war.  The  Irish  Nationalists  disavowed  the  Sinn  Feiners  as 
promptly  and  as  fully  as  did  the  Ulsterites,  and  there  was  no  seri- 
ous disaffection  among  Irish  troops  in  France.  Subsequently, 
the  severity  meted  out  to  the  rebels  by  the  British  Government 
reacted  in  favor  of  the  Sinn  Fein,  and  the  inability  or  unwill- 
ingness of  the  coalition  ministry  to  govern  Ireland  except  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet  deflected  many  British  troops  from  France. 
But  these  developments  were  too  late  to  alter  in  any  respect  the 
solemn  fact  that  in  1916  Germany  was  failing  to  obtain  a  mil- 
itary decision. 


i62         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

DIFFICULTIES  AT  SEA :    THE  GRAND  FLEET  AND  THE  UNITED 
STATES   GOVERNMENT 

In  addition  to  the  military  difficulties  which  the  Teutons 
encountered  in  the  spring  of  191 6  at  Verdun  and  in  the  Tren- 
tino,  there  was  the  ever-present  difficulty  inherent  in  Allied 
mastery  of  the  seas.  Unable  to  foment  serious  rebellion  within 
the  British  Empire  or  to  meet  the  British  fleet  on  equal  terms, 
the  Germans  had  to  sit  more  or  less  idly  by  while  Britain  carried 
on  her  vast  commerce  and  transported  great  numbers  of  men  and 
huge  quantities  of  munitions. 

Such  weapons  as  Germany  might  employ  against  British  mari- 
time supremacy  were  pitifully  inadequate,  and  her  naval  exploits 
were  largely  of  the  spectacular  sort.  A  few  commerce-raiders 
still  managed  to  elude  the  British  blockade  and  to  prey  upon 
Allied  shipping.  Thus,  the  Moewe  returned  to  Germany  early 
in  March,  1916,  after  capturing  one  French,  one  Belgian,  and 
thirteen  British  merchantmen  together  with  two  hundred  pris- 
oners and  one  million  marks  in  gold.  But  so  long  as  the  British 
Grand  Fleet  kept  the  German  battleships  in  home  waters,  Ger- 
man raiders  were  pretty  certain  sooner  or  later  to  fall  victims 
to  the  Allies. 

There  remained  the  submarine.  But  the  submarine,  while  it 
had  destroyed  a  considerable  amount  of  Allied  commerce  during 
191 5  and  might  be  depended  upon  to  destroy  a  larger  amount  in 
1 91 6,  had  already  raised  most  embarrassing  points  in  inter- 
national law  and  would  be  likely  in  the  future,  if  pushed  to 
extreme  use,  to  alienate  neutral  Powers  and  force  them  to  take 
common  action  with  the  Allies  for  mutual  protection  of  trade. 
That  this  was  no  baseless  apprehension  was  evidenced  by  the 
entry  of  Portugal  into  the  Great  War  in  March,  1916. 

Portugal  had  long  been  in  intimate  trade-relationship  with 
Great  Britain,  and  an  old  treaty  of  alliance  bound  her  to  give 
military  aid  to  Britain  if  requested.  In  accordance  with  this 
treaty,  Portugal  in  1914  signified  her  willingness  to  assist  her 
ally,  but  she  was  not  called  upon  to  take  action  until  the  progress 
of  the  German  submarine-campaign  had  caused  hardship  to  the 
Portuguese  people  and  had  threatened  a  shortage  of  Allied 
shipping.  Then  it  was,  in  February,  1916,  that  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  the  British  foreign  secretary,  requested  the  Portuguese 
Government  to  commandeer  all  German  merchant  vessels  in 
Portuguese  waters.  As  soon  as  the  request  was  granted,  Ger- 
many declared  war  against  Portugal,  March  9,  and  Austria- 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     163 

Hungary  followed  suit  on  March  15.  The  intervention  of  Por- 
tugal was  of  small  military  advantage  to  the  Entente,  but  it 
enabled  the  Allies  to  add  to  their  common  merchant  marine  some 
forty  Austrian  and  German  ships  seized  by  Portugal. 

Far  more  serious  than  the  entry  of  Portugal  into  the  war  was 
the  rising  opposition  of  the  United  States  to  submarine  warfare 
as  conducted  by  Germany.  Portugal  was  a  small  Power,  and 
to  declare  war  on  her  would  cost  Germany  not  very  much  more 
than  the  paper  on  which  the  declaration  was  written.  But  the 
United  States  was  a  Great  Power  whose  enmity  might  be  bought 
too  dearly.  It  was  worth  while  to  think  before  one  leaped  into 
war  with  the  United  States. 

There  was  undoubtedly  a  general  feeling  in  Germany  that  the 
United  States  was  naturally  quite  pacific;  the  Americans  were 
reputed  to  be  as  adept  at  keeping  out  of  European  entangle- 
ments as  at  ''chasing  the  almighty  dollar,"  and  the  patience  and 
forbearance  of  their  government  for  almost  a  year  after  the  sink- 
ing of  the  Lusitania  were  interpreted  as  signs  of  convinced  pac- 
ifism if  not  of  unmanly  fear.  At  any  rate,  Admiral  von  Tirpitz, 
as  director  of  Germany's  maritime  policies,  was  determined  to 
utilize  his  submarines  to  the  full,  even  if  thereby  the  United 
States  should  be  drawn  into  the  hostile  coalition.  It  was  the  one 
chance  of  breaking  England's  control  of  the  seas,  and  the  one 
chance  must  not  be  thrown  away  because  of  uncertainty  as  to 
what  the  United  States  might,  or  might  not,  do.  All  the  jingo- 
istic elements  in  Germany  backed  von  Tirpitz  and  insisted  vehe- 
mently upon  an  extension  of  submarine  warfare  as  the  only 
effective  means  of  retaliation  against  Great  Britain's  effort  to 
"starve"  Germany. 

Since  by  arming  their  merchantmen  the  Allies  had  endeavored 
to  combat  the  growing  submarine  menace,  the  Central  Powers 
announced  on  February  8,  1916,  that  beginning  on  March  i 
their  submarines  would  be  instructed  to  attack  without  warning 
any  enemy  merchantman  mounting  cannon.  Armed  merchant- 
men were  to  be  treated  virtually  as  belligerent  warships,  and 
neutral  Powers  were  to  warn  their  subjects  not  to  travel  on 
armed  merchantmen  of  belligerent  nationality.  Among  the 
neutral  Powers,  Sweden  complied  with  the  Austro- German 
request,  but  the  United  States,  after  some  hesitation,  returned 
a  flat  refusal.  Nevertheless,  the  Central  Powers  persisted  in 
their  intention,  and  in  March  a  number  of  merchantmen  were 
torpedoed  without  warning. 

On  March  24,  1916,  the  Sussex,  an  English  Channel  boat,  was 


i64        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

struck  by  a  torpedo  from  a  German  submarine :  about  fifty  per- 
sons lost  their  lives,  and  three  American  citizens  were  injured. 
A  wave  of  indignation  swept  over  the  United  States,  which  was 
soon  swelled  by  lame  attempts  of  the  German  Government  to 
disclaim  responsibility.  The  obvious  anger  of  the  American 
people  and  the  now  insistent  demands  of  President  Wilson 
tended  to  change  the  current  of  German  opinion  about  the  United 
States.  Possibly  the  Americans  were  courageous  after  all; 
possibly  they  might  join  England  in  forceful  manner;  possibly, 
in  this  event,  the  situation  created  by  unrestricted  submarine 
warfare  would  be  worse  than  the  existing  British  blockade.  It 
might  pay  to  be  conciliatory  —  at  least  for  a  time. 

To  a  more  discreet  attitude  in  the  matter  Germany  was  turned 
by  the  retirement  of  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  and  by  the  succession, 
as  secretary  of  state  for  the  navy,  of  Vice- Admiral  von  Capelle. 
Von  Capelle  and  Chancellor  Bethmann-Hollweg  worked  to- 
gether to  quiet  Tirpitz  and  other  jingoistic  Germans  and  to 
effect  a  settlement  with  the  United  States.  At  length,  on  May 
4,  191 6,  the  German  Government  promised  that  henceforth  no 
merchantman  would  be  sunk  without  warning  and  without  due 
provision  for  the  security  of  passengers'  lives  except  when  a 
merchantman  attempted  flight  or  resistance.  Thereby  Germany 
formally  repudiated  "  ruthlessness "  in  submarine  warfare  and  in 
so  doing  apparently  abandoned  the  Tirpitz  hope  of  bringing 
British  mastery  of  the  seas  quickly  to  an  end. 

A  more  gradual  ending  of  British  naval  dominance  was  the 
hope  of  Bethmann-Hollweg  and  the  purpose  of  his  seemingly 
conciliatory  policy  toward  America.  He  intimated  in  his  note 
of  May  4  that  in  return  for  his  concession  he  would  expect  the 
United  States  to  aid  Germany,  at  least  diplomatically,  in  light- 
ening the  British  blockade.  But  Bethmann-Hollweg  was  dis- 
appointed as  well  as  Tirpitz,  for  on  May  8  President  Wilson 
declared  in  unequivocal  words  that  the  American  Government 
'' cannot  for  a  moment  entertain,  much  less  discuss,  the  sugges- 
tion that  respect  by  the  German  naval  authorities  for  the  right 
of  citizens  of  the  United  States  upon  the  high  seas  should  in  any 
way,  or  in  the  slightest  degree,  be  made  contingent  upon  the  con- 
duct of  any  other  government  as  affecting  the  rights  of  neutrals 
and  non-combatants.  The  responsibility  in  such  matters  is 
single  not  joint,  absolute  not  relative."  It  was  obvious  that  the 
United  States  would  be  no  catspaw  for  Germany.  It  was  a  bit 
alarming,  and  Germany  decided  for  the  present  to  hold  her 
submarines  in  leash. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916    165 

Foiled  in  the  effective  use  of  commerce-raiders  by  the  British 
Grand  Fleet  and  in  the  ruthless  use  of  submarines  by  the  United 
States  Government,  the  German  naval  authorities  decided,  as  a 
last  resort,  to  take  as  heavy  toll  as  possible  of  the  British  block- 
ading squadrons  by  risking  their  own  high-seas  fleet  in  a  naval 
battle.  The  resulting  battle,  the  only  really  important  naval 
engagement  of  the  Great  War,  was  fought  in  the  North  Sea,  off 
Jutland,  on  May  31,  19 16.  The  German  forces  consisted  of  five 
battle-cruisers,  three  battle-squadrons  (comprising  seventeen 
dreadnoughts  and  eight  pre-dreadnoughts) ,  a  number  of  fast 
light  cruisers,  and  several  destroyer  flotillas ;  the  battle-cruiser 
squadron  was  commanded  by  Vice-Admiral  von  Hipper,  and  the 
major  part  of  the  whole  fleet  by  Vice-Admiral  von  Scheer.  The 
British  force,  which  at  the  time  was  making  one  of  its  periodical 
sweeps  through  the  North  Sea,  consisted  of :  (a)  sl  squadron  of  six 
swift  battle-cruisers  under  Vice-Admiral  Sir  David  Beatty,  the 
''fifth"  battle  squadron  of  four  fast  battleships  under  Rear- 
Admiral  Thomas,  and  several  speedy  light  cruisers  and  flotillas  of 
destroyers;  (b)  the  main  fleet  under  Admiral  Sir  John  Jellicoe, 
composed  of  twenty-five  dreadnoughts  and  a  large  number  of 
subsidiary  craft. 

On  the  afternoon  of  May  31,  Vice-Admiral  Beatty  with  his 
command  was  scouting  ahead  of  the  main  fleet  and  about  fifty 
miles  south  of  it,  when  suddenly  the  smoke  of  enemy  ships  was 
spied  to  the  southeastward.  Thinking  he  was  in  the  vicinity  of 
only  a  raiding  squadron,  he  engaged  von  Hipper's  fast  battle- 
cruisers  and  was  drawn  on  by  them  northeastwards  until  his 
squadron,  now  supported  by  that  of  Rear-Admiral  Thomas,  came 
into  the  range  of  the  major  portion  of  the  German  high-seas 
fleet.  Being  separated  from  the  slower  British  forces  under 
Jellicoe,  the  squadrons  of  Beatty  and  Thomas  were  severely 
punished  and  obliged  to  reverse  their  course,  pursued  by  the 
whole  German  force.  It  was  only  when  evening  came,  with  a 
heavy  mist,  that  the  Germans  were  stayed  by  the  arrival  of  the 
British  Grand  Fleet.  During  the  night  Jellicoe  manoeuvered 
to  keep  along  the  coast  between  the  Germans  and  their  base,  but 
in  the  darkness  the  Germans  managed  to  elude  him,  and  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  following  day  the  British  squadrons  left  Jutland 
for  their  respective  bases. 

The  battle  of  Jutland  took  a  rather  heavy  toll  of  British  sea- 
men and  ships.  The  British  lost  at  least  113,000  tons,  including 
the  battle-cruisers  Queen  Mary  (27,000  tons),  Indefatigable  (18,750 
tons),  and  Invincible  (17,250  tons).     But  the  Germans  lost  pro- 


i66        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

portionately  more,   and  they  had  absolutely  failed  to  shake 
Britain's  mastery  of  the  seas. 

Shortly  after  the  battle  of  Jutland,  the  British  armored 
cruiser  Hampshire,  carrying  Lord  Kitchener  on  a  secret  mission 
to  Russia,  was  sunk  off  the  coast  of  Scotland  (June  6) ,  and  Eng- 
land's war  minister  and  foremost  soldier  lost  his  life.^  A  month 
later  the  Deutschland,  an  unarmed  German  ''merchant  sub- 
marine," successfully  eluded  vigilant  Allied  warships  and  made 
a  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  to  the  United  States  and  back 
again.  These  exploits  were  spectacular  and  sensational,  but 
they  were  devoid  of  larger  significance.  They  served  merely  to 
emphasize  the  prosaic  fact  that  Germany  was  being  slowly 
strangled  by  the  sea  power  of  Great  Britain. 

At  the  beginning  of  191 6  Germany  optimistically  had  expected 
to  obtain  a  victorious  peace  before  autumn.  By  midsummer, 
however,  very  practical  difficulties  stood  in  Germany's  way  — 
the  heroic  French  at  Verdun,  the  gallant  Italians  above  Vicenza, 
the  dogged  British  off  Jutland,  the  insistence  of  the  President  of 
neutral  America  —  and  these  difficulties  gave  rise  to  a  wave  of 
domestic  fault-finding  which  disturbed  the  serenity  of  German 
optimists.  The  Social  Democratic  Party  split  into  two  factions 
in  the  spring  of  1916,  one  faction  —  the  Majority,  under  Scheide- 
mann  —  still  supporting  the  government,  but  the  other  —  the 
Minority,  under  Haase  and  Ledebour  —  uniting  their  voices 
with  the  formerly  lone  voices  of  Karl  Liebknecht  and  Rosa 
Luxemburg  in  bitter  invective  against  the  war  and  its  German 
authors.  At  the  other  extreme,  certain  Conservatives  and 
National  Liberals,  forming  the  Fatherland  Party,  devoted  their 
energies  to  vehement  denunciation  of  the  "conciliatory"  poli- 
cies and  temperamental  ''softness"  of  Bethmann-Hollweg. 
Verily,  it  was  no  longer  a  perfectly  united  Germany  on  which 
the  fortunes  of  Mittel-Europa  would  depend.  Henceforth  the 
German  Government  must  conduct  the  war  not  only  with  atten- 
tion to  strictly  military  strategy  against  the  Entente  but  also 
with  an  eye  to  political  strategy  at  home. 

So  in  1 91 6  Bethmann-Hollweg  began  seriously  to  talk  about 
"peace."  It  must  be  a  victorious  peace  —  that  was  demanded 
by  the  Fatherland  Party.  It  must  be  a  peace  of  conciliation  — 
that  was  demanded  by  many  Socialists.     And  the  patent  in- 

*  Lord  Kitchener  was  succeeded  as  British  war  minister  by  David  Lloyd  George. 
About  the  same  time  General  Gallieni  died;  he  had  already  been  succeeded  as 
French  war  minister  by  General  Roques. 


GERMANY  FAILS  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     167 

sincerity  of  the  Chancellor's  peace  proposals  in  1916  was  not  so 
much  the  outcome  of  weakness  in  his  own  character  as  the 
inevitable  result  of  his  efforts  to  reconcile  irreconcilable  popular 
demands.  What  he  set  out  to  do  was  to  convince  the  Socialists 
that  the  Allies  —  and  the  Allies  alone  —  were  inimical  to  any 
peace  of  conciliation,  and  thereby  to  commit  the  Socialists  to 
support  the  demands  of  the  Pan- Germans.  If  seemingly  honest 
endeavors  at  compromise  were  thwarted  by  the  Entente,  then 
Germany  must  fight  on,  cost  what  it  might,  to  a  victorious 
peace.  On  May  22,  1916,  Bethmann-HoUweg  declared  that  the 
Allies  rather  than  the  Central  Powers  were  guilty  of  "militarism" 
and  that  they  must  "come  down  to  a  basis  of  real  facts"  and 
"  take  the  war  situation  as  every  war  map  shows  it  to  be."  And 
early  in  June  he  announced  that,  if  the  Allies  persisted  in  shutting 
their  eyes  to  the  war-map,  "then  we  shall  and  must  fight  on  to 
final  victory."  "We  did  what  we  could,"  the  Chancellor  asserted 
"to  pave  the  way  for  peace,  but  our  enemies  repelled  us  with 
scorn;  consequently,  all  further  talk  of  peace  initiated  by  us 
becomes  futile  and  evil." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Allies  in  the  first  half  of  191 6  had  re- 
pelled the  Teutons  with  something  more  effective  than  scorn. 
They  had  repelled  them  with  blood  and  iron.  And  in  measure 
as  the  German  hope  of  obtaining  a  military  decision  in  191 6 
receded,  that  of  the  Entente  increased.  In  June,  1916,  Lloyd 
George  wrote  that  "only  a  crushing  military  victory  will  bring 
the  peace  for  which  the  Allies  are  fighting,"  and  Aristide  Briand, 
the  French  premier,  stated  that  peace  "can  come  only  out  of 
our  victory."  German  failure  promised  Allied  success.  The 
Allies  set  out  in  the  summer  of  1916  to  obtain  a  military  decision 
before  the  new  year. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  ALLIES  FAIL   TO   OBTAIN  A  DECISION   IN   1916 
ATTEMPTED   COORDINATION  OF    ALLIED   PLANS 

By  midsummer  of  1916,  it  was  apparent  that  Germany  would 
not  obtain  an  immediate  military  decision.  It  was  less  appar- 
ent, but  quite  as  real,  that  Germany,  though  still  tactically 
on  the  offensive,  was  already  strategically  on  the  defensive. 
Mittel-Europa  was  a  vast  fortress,  but  one  besieged  on  all  sides, 
and  for  its  safety  the  territory  held  by  it  mattered  far  less  than 
its  relative  man-power  and  economic  resources. 

It  was  generally  recognized  that  what  military  superiority 
the  Central  Empires  had  demonstrated  to  date  was  due  not  to 
any  absolute  excess  of  man-power  and  economic  resources,  for 
in  these  respects  the  Entente  Powers  enjoyed  remarkable  supe- 
riority, but  rather  to  greater  efhciency  and  discretion  in  their 
use.  What  had  most  handicapped  the  Allies  for  two  years  was, 
first,  a  shortage  of  munitions,  and  secondly,  a  lack  of  unity  in 
planning  and  conducting  campaigns  on  all  fronts. 

For  the  AlHes  the  situation  was  improved  by  the  summer 
of  191 6.  The  lessons  of  the  unsuccessful  drives  on  the  West- 
ern Front  in  191 5  and  of  the  Russian  retreat  had  been  taken 
to  heart.  In  munitionment  the  change  was  amazing.  France 
was  now  amply  provided  for,  Russia  had  a  supply  at  least  four 
times  greater  than  she  had  ever  known,  and  Great  Britain  was 
manufacturing  and  issuing  to  the  Western  Front  weekly  as  much 
as  the  whole  pre-war  stock  of  land-service  ammunition  in  the 
country.  Even  more  significant,  the  Allies  were  now  seeking 
to  coordinate  their  several  military  and  economic  efforts  against 
the  common  foe. 

Only  by  a  long  series  of  discouraging  defeats  were  the  Allies 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  stern  necessity  of  cooperation. 
After  Russia's  field  armies  had  been  routed  by  Hindenburg; 
after  the  Anglo-French  offensive  of  September-October,  191 5, 
had  proved  to  be  merely  another  ''nibble"  at  the  German  Kne; 
after  Serbia  had  been  conquered;    after   Gallipoli  had  been 

168 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     169 

ingloriously  evacuated ;  after  Townshend  had  been  surrounded 
at  Kut-el-Amara ;  after  the  French  Hnes  north  and  east  of 
Verdun  had  been  battered  back  from  village  to  village  and  from 
hill  to  hill  by  the  German  Crown  Prince's  terrific  attacks ;  only 
then  did  the  Allies  clearly  perceive  their  greatest  need.  Only 
then  did  the  Allies  lose  faith  in  the  precepts  of  the  old  inter- 
national anarchy  and  evince  a  willingness  to  abandon,  at  least 
temporarily,  some  of  their  individual  sovereign  rights  for  the 
sake  of  creating  an  effective  league  of  nations  against  imperial- 
istic Germany. 

On  March  27-28,  1916,  the  first  general  war  council  of  the 
Entente  Powers  ^  was  held  in  Paris.  France,  Great  Britain, 
Italy,  Belgium,  Serbia,  Russia,  Japan,  Montenegro,  and  Por- 
tugal were  represented,  the  first  five  by  their  premiers  and  foreign 
ministers,  and  the  others  by  diplomatic  agents ;  Joffre,  Castelnau, 
Kitchener,  Robertson,  Cadorna,  and  Gihnsky  (aid-de-camp 
to  the  Tsar)  attended  in  person  to  give  authoritative  military 
information ;  while  Lloyd  George  and  Albert  Thomas,  ministers 
of  munitions  respectively  for  Great  Britain  and  France,  reported 
on  the  vital  subject  of  army  materiel.  Not  only  was  the  diplo- 
matic unity  of  the  Entente  reaffirmed  by  the  War  Council,  but 
military  agreements  were  concluded  among  the  general  staffs 
of  the  various  nations  represented,  and  plans  were  laid  for  con- 
certed attacks,  during  the  summer  of  19 16,  on  the  Western,  the 
Eastern,  the  Italian,  and  the  Balkan  Fronts.  As  for  economic 
cooperation,  the  War  Council  decided  (a)  to  establish  in  Paris 
a  permanent  committee,  representing  all  the  AlHes,  to  strengthen 
the  blockade  of  the  Central  Powers,  {h)  to  take  common  action 
through  the  Central  Bureau  of  Freights  in  London  for  the  reduc- 
tion of  exorbitant  freight  rates  and  for  a  more  equitable  appor- 
tionment of  the  burdens  of  maritime  transport,  and  (c)  to  partici- 
pate in  an  Economic  Conference  to  be  held  shortly  in  Paris. 

In  April  an  AlHed  inter-parhamentary  conference  met  in  Paris, 
and  in  June  the  Economic  Conference  convened.  The  latter, 
during  its  brief  three  days'  session,  agreed  upon  a  far-reaching 
scheme  of  economic  solidarity,  which  not  only  would  enhance 
the  effect  of  the  Allied  blockade  during  the  war,  but  would  also 
prolong  the  commercial  struggle  after  the  war  by  enforcing  a 
partial  exclusion  of  German  manufactures  from  Entente  coun- 
tries and  by  estabhshing  within  the  Entente  a  uniform  system 
of  laws  respecting  patents,  corporations,  bankruptcy,  etc.  In 
fine,  the  Entente  Powers  were  to  consolidate  themselves  into  a 
^  An  Anglo-French  War  Council  had  been  created  in  November,  1915. 


I70         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

huge  economic  coalition,  a  formidable  engine  of  trade- war  even 
in  time  of  peace.^ 

In  order  that  the  war  against  German  trade  might  be  pushed 
with  the  utmost  effect,  it  was  urgently  necessary  that  Italy 
be  induced  to  abandon  her  absurd  pretense  of  remaining  at 
peace  with  Germany  while  being  at  war  with  Austria-Hungary. 
Italy's  delay  in  declaring  war  against  Germany  had  given  rise 
in  some  quarters  to  a  suspicion  that  her  Government  was  play- 
ing false.  In  February,  however,  the  Allies  had  persuaded 
the  Italian  Government  to  prohibit  the  exportation  of  German 
or  Austrian  merchandise  through  Italy  as  well  as  the  transit 
through  Italy  of  commodities  for  Germany  or  Austria-Hungary, 
and  to  requisition  the  thirty-four  German  merchant  steamers 
interned  in  Italian  ports.  After  the  Allied  War  Council  and 
the  Economic  Conference,  Italy  finally,  on  August  28,  1916, 
declared  war  against  the  German  Empire,  on  the  ground  that 
Germany  was  aiding  Italy's  enemies,  Austria-Hungary  and 
Turkey. 

Already  economic  conditions  within  the  Central  Empires 
were  causing  grave  concern  to  the  Teutonic  authorities.  Due 
to  the  pressure  of  the  AlHed  blockade,  the  food  situation  was 
becoming  alarming  in  Austria-Hungary  and  in  Germany,  and 
naturally  it  was  the  civiKan  population  which  in  both  countries 
suffered  most.  As  early  as  May,  1916,  what  amounted  to  a 
food  dictatorship  had  been  established  in  Germany  under  Herr 
von  Batocki,  who  received  wide  discretionary  powers  to  regulate 
the  supply,  consumption,  and  sale  of  foodstuffs. 

In  June  and  July  there  were  frequent  reports  of  food  difficulties. 
Riots  occurred  in  Munich  and  in  Essen.  It  appeared  as  though 
Mittel-Europa  was  on  the  verge  of  starvation  and  perhaps  of 
revolution. 

Time  seemed  to  be  ripe  for  the  AlHes  to  strike  powerful  blows 
on  all  fronts,  in  France,  in  Russia,  on  the  Isonzo,  in  Macedo- 
nia, in  Mesopotamia.  The  Central  Empires,  weakened  by  the 
economic  blockade  and  by  famine,  would  be  unable  to  withstand 
concerted  military  pressure  against  their  frontiers.  Defeat 
on  battlefields  must  surely  be  followed  by  revolution  at  home, 
and  in  that  event  Teutonic  collapse  would  be  inevitable  and 
speedy  —  perhaps  before  the  end  of  1916. 

^  Shortly  after  the  Economic  Conference  of  June,  191 6,  the  Entente  Powers  pro- 
ceeded formally  to  repudiate  the  Declaration  of  London  as  a  code  of  international 
law  for  maritime  warfare,  and  Great  Britain  even  went  so  far  as  to  draw  up  an 
ofi&cial  "blacklist"  of  neutral  firms  with  German  affiliations.  American  protests 
against  this  action  of  Great  Britain  were  fruitless. 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     171 

SIMULTANEOUS  ALLIED  DRIVES :    THE  SOMME,  THE  ISONZO, 
AND   THE   SERETH 

The  first  of  the  series  of  great  offensives  planned  by  the  Allies 
for  the  summer  of  191 6  was  the  Russian  drive,  which  began  on 
June  4  and  continued  for  about  ten  weeks.  Though  Russia 
had  suffered  grievously  in  191 5  and  had  been  compelled  to  evacu- 
ate GaHcia,  Bukowina,  Poland,  and  considerable  parts  of  Lithu- 
ania and  Courland,  she  had  utihzed  the  respite  afforded  her  by 
Teutonic  concentrations  on  other  fronts  —  in  the  Balkans, 
against  Verdun,  and  in  the  Trentino  —  in  order  to  reform  her 
lines,  replenish  her  stores  of  ammunition,  and  reorganize  her 
command.  In  the  winter  of  191 5-19 16  she  had  gallantly  and 
brilHantly  defended  Riga  against  German  attacks  by  land  and 
sea;  in  March,  1916,  she  had  contested  enemy  positions  north 
and  south  of  Dvinsk  and  had  thereby  prevented  the  Germans 
from  sending  additional  reenforcements  to  Verdun  from  the 
East ;  and  by  June,  she  held  in  unexpected  strength  a  long  line 
from  west  of  Riga  past  Dvinsk,  Smorgon,  the  Pripet  marshes, 
Rovno,  and  Tarnapol,  to  the  northern  border  of  Rumania. 

The  Russians  elected  to  deliver  their  attack  on  the  southern 
third  of  the  Eastern  Front.  In  the  middle  sector,  which  extended 
north  from  the  Pripet  marshes  across  the  Lithuanian  plain  to 
the  lake  region  northeast  of  Vilna,  the  opposing  line  was  held 
too  strongly  by  hardened  German  veterans  for  the  Russian 
commander,  General  Ewarts,  to  attempt  an  offensive  there  with 
his  raw  recruits.  Nor  was  an  offensive  practicable  along  the 
northern  third  of  the  Russian  front ;  even  if  General  Kuropatkin, 
commander  of  the  Russian  armies  of  the  north,  had  the  courage 
and  genius  to  try  conclusions  with  the  master-strategist  of  Ger- 
many, Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg,  the  network  of  lakes  and 
rivers  and  the  broad  stream  of  the  Diina  would  impede  a  Russian 
drive  just  as  effectively  as  they  had  blocked  Hindenburg's  ad- 
vance toward  Riga  and  Dvinsk.  On  the  southern  sector,  how- 
ever, between  the  Pripet  marshes  and  the  Russo-Rumanian 
border,  a  Russian  offensive  would  be  both  more  feasible  from  a 
military  point  of  view  and  more  desirable  from  a  political  stand- 
point, since  that  portion  of  the  hostile  line  was  manned  mainly 
by  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  Austro-Hungarian  nationahties, 
rather  than  by  the  invincible  Prussians,  and  since  a  successful 
drive  against  Austria-Hungary  would  certainly  relieve  pressure 
on  Italy  and  perhaps  induce  Rumania  to  enter  the  war  on  the 
side  of  the  Entente. 


172 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


General  Brussilov,  the  commander  of  the  Russian  southern 
sector,  was  by  all  odds  the  best  man  who  could  have  been  selected 
for  the  conduct  of  a  great  offensive.  Energetic,  aggressive, 
indefatigable,  Brussilov  had  splendidly  led  one  of  the  Russian 
armies  in  the  first  invasion  of  Galicia,  in  1914;  in  April,  1916, 
he  had  been  selected  to  succeed  General  Ivanov  in  supreme 


The  Russian  Drive  on  the  Styr,  1916 


command  of  the  southern  army-group.  Against  the  scant 
700,000  men  with  whom  the  Austrian  Archduke  Frederick  op- 
posed him,  Brussilov  could  muster  more  than  a  million,  with 
another  million  of  half-trained  recruits  to  draw  upon  for  later 
reenforcements. 

Brussilov's  drive  began  most  auspiciously.     Military  critics 
were  no  less  surprised  than  the  Austro-Hungarian  trenchmen 


ALLIES   FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     173 

were  dismayed  at  the  immense  quantities  of  high  explosive 
shells  with  which  the  Russian  artillery  accurately  and  thoroughly 
bombarded  the  Austrian  defenses.  Following  the  artillery 
preparation,  Brussilov  on  June  4  launched  simultaneous  infantry 
attacks  at  innumerable  points  all  along  the  250-mile  front  from 


KEY 

^  ^^1  Russian  Front  In  M,ay,   1916    /^\)°' 
^m^mmmRuaslan  Front  In  Sept.,  79/5./Poianai^ 

SCALE  OF  MILES  ^^^Tibt^^^/^ 

0      5      10  20  30     BORGO  PAS§\. 


The  Russian  Drive  on  the  Sereth,  191 6 

the  Pripet  to  the  Pruth,  rudely  interrupting  the  festivities  with 
which  at  that  very  moment  the  Archduke  Frederick's  sixtieth 
birthday  was  being  celebrated  behind  the  Austrian  Knes.  In 
Volhynia  the  Russians  advancing  from  Rovno  speedily  captured 
the  fortresses  of  Dubno  and  Lutsk  and  occupied  an  important 
stretch  of  territory  west  of  the  Styr  River.    At  the  same  time 


174         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

in  eastern  Galicia  they  crossed  the  Sereth  River  and  captured 
Buczacz  on  the  Strypa.  Still  farther  south,  they  forced  the 
crossing  of  the  Pruth  on  June  i6  and  on  the  following  day  entered 
Czernowitz,  the  capital  of  Bukowina. 

After  the  first  fortnight,  the  Teutonic  lines  in  Volhynia  and 
Galicia  began  to  stiffen,  as  German  reenforcements  arrived. 
At  least  four  divisions  were  brought  from  France ;  others  came 
from  Hindenburg's  northern  armies ;  the  Austrians,  also,  with 
frantic  haste,  recalled  several  divisions  from  Italy.  Neverthe- 
less, by  the  end  of  June  the  greater  part  of  Bukowina  was  in 
Russian  hands  and  Russian  cavalry  were  ''approaching  the 
Transylvanian  passes";  and  during  July  Brussilov  made  some 
further  gains  west  of  the  Dniester  and  west  of  the  Styr.  The 
drive  expired  about  the  middle  of  August  simply  because  the 
Russians  had  then  exhausted  their  supply  of  shells  and  worn 
out  their  howitzers  and  field  guns. 

The  results  of  the  Russian  drive  were  appreciable.  The 
supposedly  impregnable  Austro-German  lines  along  the  Styr 
and  the  Sereth  had  been  carried  on  the  whole  front  of  250  miles 
to  a  depth  varying  from  twenty  to  fifty  miles,  north  of  the  Dnies- 
ter, and  over  sixty  miles  south  of  the  Dniester.  The  entire 
province  of  Bukowina  had  been  conquered.  Altogether,  between 
June  4  and  August  12,  some  350,000  men,  400  guns,  and  1300 
machine-guns  had  been  captured.  Most  important  of  all,  Russia 
had  demonstrated  to  the  world  that  she  was  still  in  the  war  and 
still  capable  of  contributing  her  share  to  the  grinding  of  Ger- 
many between  upper  and  nether  millstones.  Her  sudden  rise, 
phoenix-Uke,  from  the  disastrous  fire  and  flame  of  the  preceding 
autumn  reassured  all  the  Allies  and  incidentally  conferred  on 
her  Balkan  neighbor,  Rumania,  a  new  faith  in  the  cause  and  the 
prowess  of  the  Entente. 

Brussilov's  Drive  on  the  Eastern  Front  was  closely  articulated 
with  efforts  of  General  Cadorna  on  the  Italian  Front.  It  was 
mainly  the  Russian  offensive  which  enabled  the  Italians  to  check 
the  Austrian  invasion  from  the  Trentino  and  to  inaugurate  a 
vindictive  counter-offensive  not  only  in  the  Trentino  but  along 
the  Isonzo. 

In  the  face  of  Cadorna's  assaults,  the  Austrians  about  June 
25  began  a  retreat  on  the  Trentino  front,  evacuating  in  turn 
Asiago,  Arsiero,  and  Posina.  The  Austrian  retirement  was 
planned  and  executed  with  such  skill  that  very  few  prisoners 
and  almost  no  guns  were  lost;  nevertheless,  it  removed  any 
immediate  danger  from  northern  Italy,  and  in  this  way  amounted 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     175 

to  an  important  Italian  victory.  Throughout  July,  Cadorna 
exerted  pressure  against  the  Trentino  front,  but  his  principal 
blow  was  reserved  for  the  Isonzo. 

Heavy  mortars  and  howitzers,  transferred  from  the  Trentino, 
opened  fire  along  the  Isonzo  front  on  August  4,  just  before  the 
conclusion  of  the  Russian  drive.     The  first  day's  attack,  directed 


f'ONTArEL 

i'Mr.Gleres 

MoGGlb  ■     .'^  W.^^'O^-) 

Racco^ana 


Malborometto 


Res.iulla^"': 


/AOATirt-:'";-^ 


i)TARCENTO 


The  Italian  Campaign  against  Gorizia 


against  hills  east  of  Monfalcone,  was  really  a  feint  to  draw  the 
Austrian  reserves  toward  the  southern  wing.  The  frontal 
attack  delivered  two  days  later  along  an  eight-mile  line  opposite 
Gorizia  was  in  deadly  earnest.  The  Austrian  trenches  were 
pulverized  by  nine-hours'  continuous  bombardment.  The  Ital- 
ian infantry,  believing  that  the  hour  of  victory  had  at  last  arrived, 
charged  with  unexampled  impetuosity.     The  heights  on   the 


176        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

western  bank  of  the  Isonzo,  overlooking  Gorizia  across  the 
stream,  were  carried  the  first  day,  as  were  also  the  heights  farther 
north.  South  of  Gorizia,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Isonzo,  the 
Itahans  stormed  the  summit  of  Monte  San  Michele,  the  key 
of  the  Gorizia  position,  for  which  they  had  striven  for  fourteen 
months.  The  Austrians  resisted  with  stubborn  courage.  Iso- 
lated groups  held  out  to  the  bitter  end,  in  grottoes,  in  dugouts, 
or  on  inaccessible  hilltops.  General  Boroevic,  the  Croatian 
commander  of  the  Austrian  army  of  the  Isonzo,  urged  his  troops 
to  ''  repulse  the  attack  in  such  a  way  that  none  of  the  enemy  shall 
escape."  Nevertheless,  after  two  days'  battle,  all  the  heights 
west  of  the  Isonzo  were  carried ;  and  on  August  9,  19 16,  Italian 
infantry  escorted  King  Victor  Emmanuel  into  Gorizia. 

After  the  conquest  of  Gorizia,  formidable  obstacles  had  to 
be  surmounted  before  the  Italians  could  hope  to  *' emancipate" 
Trieste.  East  of  Gorizia  were  frowning  hills,  bristling  with 
Austrian  guns.  South  of  Gorizia,  directly  barring  the  way  to 
Trieste,  lay  the  Carso  plateau,  the  surface  of  which,  naturally 
scarred  by  innumerable  caverns  and  crater-Hke  depressions,  had 
been  covered  by  the  Austrians  with  a  veritable  labyrinth  of 
entrenchments,  blasted  in  the  solid  rock  and  connected  by  subter- 
ranean tunnels.  In  a  region  such  as  this,  no  offensive  could 
make  rapid  progress;  and  the  shght  Italian  advance  beyond 
Gorizia  was  achieved  only  by  dint  of  the  hardest  kind  of  fight- 
ing. But  at  least  Gorizia  was  won  and  with  it  a  foothold  on 
the  Carso.  The  loss  inflicted  on  the  Austrians  by  the  whole 
Italian  offensive  in  the  first  two  weeks  of  August  was  estimated 
at  65,000 ;  the  Italians  announced  that  18,750  prisoners,  30  guns, 
62  trench  mortars,  92  machine-^uns,  60,000  grenades,  and  other 
booty,  had  fallen  into  their  hands. 

Cadorna's  drive  on  the  Isonzo  and  Brussilov's  on  the  Styr 
and  the  Sereth  were  hardly  expected  by  the  Allies  to  be  decisive. 
They  were  intended  primarily  to  divert  the  energies  and  forces 
of  the  Central  Empires  from  the  Anglo-French  line  on  the  Somme, 
where  the  Allies  willed  to  make  their  major  effort.  A  month 
after  the  Russians  inaugurated  their  offensive  on  the  Eastern 
Front  and  a  month  before  the  Italian  offensive  reached  its  height, 
the  French  and  British  struck  furiously  against  the  Germans 
on  the  Western  Front. 

The  Anglo-French  attack  of  July,  1916,  was  delivered  on 
a  front  of  thirty  miles  from  Gommecourt  to  Estrees,  on  both 
flanks  of  the  Somme  River.  The  Somme,  as  a  glance  at  the 
map  will  show,  cut  the  Western  Front  at  a  point  about  eighty 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     177 

miles  north  of  Paris  and  the  same  distance  south  of  the  Belgian 
coast.  It  was  significant  that  the  theater  selected  for  the  major 
1 91 6  offensive  was  thirty-five  miles  south  of  the  Loos-Vimy 
sector,  which  had  been  attacked  in  September,  191 5,  and  forty- 
five  miles  south  of  Neuve  Chapelle,  the  scene  of  the  first  British 
drive,  in  March,  191 5.  The  southward  gravitation  of  successive 
Anglo-French  offensives  proved  that  the  Allies,  temporarily 
at  least,  had  abandoned  hope  of  reconquering  the  rich  coal 
and  iron  fields  of  Flanders  and  Artois.  The  new  drive  was 
launched,  not  among  mines  and  slagheaps,  but  among  the  smiling 
agricultural  villages  of  Picardy. 

The  obvious  objective  for  the  British,  who  fought  on  the 
northern  side  of  the  Somme,  was  the  town  of  Bapaume,  nine 
miles  northeast  of  the  front;  for  the  French,  who  held  a  mile 
of  the  front  on  the  northern  bank  and  four  (later,  ten)  miles 
south  of  the  river,  Peronne,  seven  miles  east  of  the  French  line 
and  twelve  miles  southeast  of  Bapaume,  was  the  natural  goal. 
Midway  between  Peronne  and  Bapaume,  the  less  important 
town  of  Combles,  three  miles  from  the  front,  might  constitute 
a  preHminary  objective.  Sanguine  ^'military  experts"  declared 
that  once  the  British  took  Bapaume  they  would  speedily  advance 
to  Cambrai  and  Douai,  two  of  the  most  important  strategic 
centers  behind  the  German  lines,  and  that  the  French,  by  press- 
ing on  beyond  Peronne  to  St.  Quentin,  would  make  the  German 
position  at  Noyon  so  dangerous  a  salient  that  it  would  have  to 
be  evacuated. 

In  the  technique  of  attack  the  Allies  this  time  had  many  sur- 
prises in  store  for  the  Germans.  Hundreds  of  airmen  in  battle- 
planes of  an  improved  type,  darting  back  and  forth  across  the 
German  lines  just  before  the  attack,  drove  the  German  air-scouts 
to  cover,  dropped  ''fire-balls"  on  the  German  observation-bal- 
loons, and  carried  back  wonderfully  clear  photographs  of  the 
German  trenches,  so  that  the  Anglo-French  artillery  could 
accurately  place  its  high-explosive  shells  precisely  where  they 
would  do  the  most  damage.  The  British,  on  Sir  Douglas  Haig's 
own  admission,  had  learned  a  lesson  from  the  enemy  and  had 
''developed  and  perfected"  the  art  of  using  poisonous  gas  and 
liquid  fire.  An  original  British  contribution  to  the  science  of 
trench-warfare  was  the  "tank,  "  ^  a  heavy  motor-truck  encased 
in  invulnerable  steel  armor-plate  and  cumbrously  moved  on 
caterpillar   treads.     With   machine-guns   spitting   murderously 

1  The  "tank"  was  first  used  in  the  second  phase  of  the  Somme  drive,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1916. 

N 


178         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

from  apertures  on  either  side,  a  ''tank"  could  lumber  across 
^'no  man's  land"  to  the  enemy's  trenches,  unscathed  by  ordinary 
rifle  or  machine-gun  fire ;  it  could  brush  aside  barbed-wire  en- 
tanglements as  though  they  were  cobwebs ;  it  could  even  crawl 
across  trenches  and  shell-craters  and  spread  confusion  and  panic 
behind  the  enemy's  lines. 

Most  promising  of  all  was  the  improvement  of  British  and 
French  artillery.  France  now  had  a  very  large  number  of  heavy 
guns,  including  some  1 6-inch  mortars ;  and  many  mihtary  critics 
regarded  the  French  howitzers,  as  well  as  the  3 -inch  field  gun 
(the  famous  ''75")?  s-s  distinctly  superior  to  their  German  coun- 
terparts. British  arsenals,  likewise,  were  now  turning  out 
howitzers  of  the  largest  caliber,  and  the  weekly  production  of 
high  explosives  was  11,000  times  as  great  as  the  total  output 
in  the  whole  month  of  September,  19 14.  It  was  upon  their 
tremendously  powerful  artillery  that  the  Allies  chiefly  relied 
to  blast  a  way  through  the  wire  entanglements,  to  plow  up  the 
intricate  German  entrenchments,  to  silence  the  German  machine- 
guns  before  the  infantry  charge,  and  to  cut  off  German  counter- 
attacks by  a  ^'curtain  of  fire." 

When  on  the  night  of  June  30- July  i,  191 6,  the  artillery  ^'prep- 
aration" of  the  Somme  drive  reached  its  climax,  "parapets 
crumbled  beneath  the  impact  of  the  shells,  cover  hitherto  thought 
bomb-proof  was  crushed  and  destroyed,  and  the  garrisons  of 
the  enemy's  works,  sorely  shattered  in  morale,  were  driven  down 
into  the  deepest  dugouts  to  seek  shelter  from  the  pitiless  hail 
of  projectiles."  Early  in  the  morning  of  July  i  there  came  a 
lull  in  the  thunder  of  the  howitzers,  as  the  gunners  lengthened 
the  range,  and  the  infantry  leaped  forward  from  AlHed  trenches, 
with  cheers,  to  charge  the  German  lines. 

Every  inch  of  Allied  advance  was  stubbornly  contested  by  the 
Germans,  and  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  Somme  drive 
would  not  immediately  menace  Cambrai,  Douai,  or  St.  Quentin. 
In  the  first  fortnight  of  the  battle,  July  1-14,  the  French  took 
12,200  prisoners,  pushed  forward  their  line  on  a  front  of  eleven 
miles  to  a  maximum  depth  of  six  miles  and  conquered  thirty 
square  miles  of  territory.  In  the  same  period  the  British  ad- 
vanced on  a  ten-mile  front  to  a  maximum  depth  of  three  miles 
and  made  10,000  prisoners. 

Badly  battered,  but  not  broken,  the  German  fine  stiffened 
perceptibly  after  the  first  fortnight.  The  French  were  brought 
to  an  abrupt  halt  a  mile  from  Peronne ;  and  furious  German 
counter-attacks  stayed  the  British.     After  a  month  of  the  great 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     179 

drive,  the  British  found  themselves  in  possession  of  twenty-four 
square  miles  of  conquered  territory,  but  blocked  by  strong  Ger- 
man positions  along  the  hilly  ridge  north  of  the  Somme  from 
Thiepval  to  Saillisel.  Until  this  ridge  could  be  carried,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  take  Bapaume. 

During  the  long  pause,  lasting  through  the  entire  month  of 
August,  in  which  the  Anglo-French  drive  came  practically  to 


Railways 
I  -.ii  Roads 
Shaded  portion  represents 
occupied  by  British 


Battle  of  the  Somme 

a  standstill,  gaining  at  the  most  a  few  hundred  yards  here  and 
there,  the  French  and  British  guns  were  being  moved  forward 
to  new  positions,  to  blast  open  the  path  for  a  new  advance. 
A  terrific  bombardment  on  the  night  of  September  2,  1916, 
gave  notice  that  the  second  phase  of  the  battle  of  the  Somme 
had  begun.  At  noon  on  September  3  the  infantry  charged, 
with  renewed  confidence  and  dash.  The  decisive  struggle  for 
the  town  of  Combles  and  for  the  ridge,  between  Thiepval  and 
Saillisel,  now  ensued. 


i8o         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Gallant  Irish  troops,  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  battle  on  the 
heights  northwest  of  Combles,  expelled  the  enemy  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet  and  repelled  ferocious  counter-attacks.  British 
''tanks"  appearing  for  the  first  time,  smashed  their  way  through 
the  German  trenches  and  were  followed  by  infantry  with  hand- 
grenades.  The  artillery  thundered  with  ''unheard-of  violence." 
By  September  25  the  whole  German  line  between  Thiepval  and 
Combles  was  pushed  over  the  ridge ;  only  Thiepval,  at  the  north- 
western end,  and  Combles,  on  the  southeast,  held  out.  But 
Combles  was  already  enveloped  from  the  south  and  east  by  the 
army  of  the  French  General  Fayolle.  At  the  very  last  moment, 
on  September  26,  the  German  garrison  evacuated  Combles, 
fighting  as  it  went,  and  retired  through  a  ravine  to  the  north- 
east under  cross-fire  from  both  sides.  On  the  same  day,  at  the 
opposite  end  of  the  ridge,  Thiepval  was  stormed  and  captured, 
and  in  the  center  the  British  line  was  pushed  more  than  a  mile 
north  of  the  crest.  The  prisoners  taken  at  Combles  and  Thiepval 
swelled  the  total,  for  the  French,  to  35,000;  for  the  British,  to 
26,000. 

Torrential  rains  and  weeks  of  cloudy  weather  hindered  the 
further  progress  of  the  Anglo-French  drive,  by  making  it  almost 
impossible  to  move  the  heavy  guns  forward,  over  muddy  roads, 
or  to  direct  artillery  fire  by  airplane  observations.  The  French 
infantry,  to  be  sure,  in  October  fought  its  way  into  Sailly  and 
Saillisel,  but  was  repeatedly  thrown  back  and  did  not  completely 
occupy  SailHsel  until  November  12.  On  their  right  wing,  the 
French  got  close  to  Chaulnes ;  and  during  the  same  period  the 
British  extended  their  successes  at  some  points  north  of  the 
Thiepval-Combles  ridge  to  within  four  miles  of  Bapaume. 

Measured  in  terms  of  territory,  the  results  of  the  Anglo- 
French  drive  on  the  Somme  were  small.  Nowhere  had  the 
advance  been  more  than  seven  miles.  The  total  area  conquered 
was  approximately  120  square  miles,  only  slightly  greater  than 
the  area  won  by  the  Germans  at  Verdun.  Neither  Bapaume 
nor  Peronne  had  been  attained,  and  neither  Cambrai  nor  the 
German  salient  at  Noyon  had  been  threatened.  Nevertheless 
the  drive  had  achieved  three  purposes :  (i)  it  had  relieved  Verdun 
and  transferred  the  offensive  in  France  from  the  Germans  to 
the  AUies ;  (2)  by  holding  the  bulk  of  the  German  army  on  the 
Western  Front,  it  had  condemned  Austria-Hungary  to  stand 
pretty  much  alone  and  therefore  unsuccessful  against  the  Rus- 
sians on  the  Styr  and  the  Sereth  and  against  the  Italians  on  the 
Isonzo ;  and  (3)  it  had  worn  down  the  German  forces. 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     181 

By  way  of  comment  on  the  third  point  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  German  casualty  hst  as  added  up  by  the  British  War  Office 
showed  a  grand  total  of  3,920,000  (since  the  beginning  of  the 
war)  on  December  i,  1916,  as  compared  with  about  3,130,000 
on  July  I ;  the  difference,  790,000,  represented  the  total  German 
losses  in  killed,  disabled,  and  captured,  on  all  fronts  during  the 
five  months  from  July  to  November,  1916.  Allowing  90,000 
for  losses  in  the  East,  the  German  loss  in  the  battle  of  the  Somme 
could  not  have  been  less  than  700,000.  The  British  loss  was 
announced  as  approximately  450,000,  and  that  of  the  French 
was  estimated  at  225,000.  But  the  AlKes  could  afford  higher 
losses  than  the  Central  Empires.  In  the  very  year  when  Great 
Britain  instituted  compulsory  military  service  and  prepared 
to  double  her  armed  strength,  the  forces  of  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary,  already  passing  their  numerical  maximum,  were 
wasting  rapidly  —  the  Austro-Hungarians  on  the  Russian  and 
Itahan  fronts,  the  Germans  at  Verdun  and  on  the  Somme. 
In  an  endurance  test  such  as  the  Great  War  was  proving  itself 
to  be,  relative  wastage  of  man-power  and  economic  resources 
was  destined  to  become  the  decisive  factor. 

If  none  of  the  AlHed  drives  in  19 16  —  Russian,  Italian,  or 
Anglo-French  —  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  immediate 
mihtary  decision,  all  of  them  together  had  demonstrated  the 
great  advantage  of  simultaneous  efforts  on  all  fronts  in  wearing 
down  Teutonic  defense  and  wasting  Teutonic  strength.  How- 
ever, they  had  been  too  exhausting  to  the  Allies  themselves  to 
enable  the  democratic  nations  at  that  time  to  perceive  in  them 
an  augury  of  ultimate  triumph  for  the  AlHed  cause.  Allied 
discouragement  was  not  immediately  remedied.  AlHed  gloom 
was  not  immediately  dispelled. 

But  the  simultaneous  drives  did  produce  one  immediate  result. 
They  brought  Rumania  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Entente, 
and  little  Rumania,  in  the  circumstances,  might  suffice  to  tip 
the  balance  of  armed  power  and  to  bring  Austria-Hungary  and 
perhaps  Germany  to  terms. 

THE    PARTICIPATION  AND   DEFEAT   OF   RUMANIA 

Before  the  war  Rumania  had  been  associated  with  the  Triple 
Alliance,  on  the  basis  of  commercial  and  defensive  agreements, 
but  since  the  Balkan  Wars  ofi9i2-i9i3  she  had  shown  a  marked 
leaning  toward  Serbia  and  the  Triple  Entente,  and  since  the 
outbreak  of  the  Great  War  the  Entente  diplomatists  had  strained 


I«2 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


every  nerve  to  enlist  Rumania's  support.  During  the  first 
two  years  of  the  struggle,  however,  Rumania  had  remained 
neutral,  whether  because  King  Ferdinand  ^  was  a  Hohenzollern, 
or  because  Russia  refused  to  offer  Bessarabia  as  part  of  the  price 
of  Rumania's  aid,  or  because  the  Rumanian  War  Office  feared 
to  try  conclusions  with  the  conquerors  of  Poland  and  Serbia, 
or  because  Rumanian  landlords  found  it  too  profitable  to  sell 
their  grain  to  the  Central  Empires.  At  any  rate,  Rumania 
wavered  and  hesitated. 

In  April,  191 6,  when  Teutonic  fortunes  appeared  most  favor- 
able, the  Rumanian  minister  at  Berlin  signed  a  convention  with 
Germany,  providing  for  free  interchange  of  domestic  products, 
and  for  a  time  the  Allies  feared  lest  Rumania  should  follow  Bul- 
garia into  the  embrace  of  Mittel-Europa.  But  subsequent  mili- 
tary events  changed  the  aspect  of  affairs  fundamentally.  By 
August,  1916,  Russia  had  displayed  unexpected  signs  of  renewed 
strength  and  power  by  conquering  Bukowina  and  threatening 
Transylvania  —  provinces  ardently  coveted  by  Rumanian  irre- 
dentists; and  the  ItaHan  conquest  of  Gorizia  on  August  9, 
together  with  the  German  failure  at  Verdun  and  the  Anglo- 
French  victories  on  the  Somme  in  July,  seemed  to  indicate  that 
the  Teutonic  armies  were  no  longer  able  to  hold  their  own. 

Furthermore,  the  situation  in  the  Balkans  was  less  disturbing 
to  Rumania  in  August,  1916,  than  it  had  been  in  the  preceding 
winter.  So  long  as  Rumania  was  to  be  assailed  not  only  by 
determined  Hungarian  armies  on  the  west  but  also  by  numerous 
Teutonic-Bulgarian-Turkish  forces  along  her  extended  southern 
frontier,  she  prudently  refrained  from  espousing  the  Allied 
cause  and  from  thereby  inviting  certain  disaster.  But  by  August, 
1 91 6,  her  Danubian  boundary  did  not  seem  to  be  directly  en- 
dangered. Exigencies  on  other  fronts  had  led  to  the  withdrawal 
of  the  greater  part  of  Mackensen's  Teutonic  army  from  the 
Balkans.  The  Turks  were  beginning  to  find  their  freed  Gallipoli 
army  inadequate  for  the  defense  of  Asiatic  Turkey  against 
Russian  attacks  in  Armenia  and  British  pressure  in  Mesopotamia 
and  against  uprisings  of  Arab  chieftains.  In  fact,  the  Russians 
under  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  on  July  25  captured  the  impor- 
tant city  of  Erzingian,  over  a  hundred  miles  west  of  Erzerum, 
and  in  August  General  Sir  Stanley  Maude  took  command  of 
the  British  forces  in  Mesopotamia,  reorganized  and  reenforced 

^  Ferdinand  had  succeeded  his  uncle,  Charles  I,  in  October,  1914,  and  was 
thought  to  be  less  devoted  to  his  Hohenzollern  relatives  in  Germany  than  his 
predecessor  had  been. 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916      183 

them,  and  prepared  to  retrieve  Townshend's  reverses.  Bagdad 
was  again  menaced.  To  add  to  the  uneasiness  and  alarm  of  the 
Turks,  the  British  began  the  construction,  across  the  Sinai 
desert,  of  a  railway  over  which  an  expeditionary  force  might 
readily  be  transported  from  Egypt  for  an  invasion  of  Palestine, 
and  already  on  June  9  the  Sherif  of  Hedjaz,  the  most  powerful 
Turkish  vassal  of  western  and  central  Arabia,  had  proclaimed 
from  sacred  Mecca  his  independence  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
Obviously  Rumania  now  had  little  or  nothing  to  fear  from  Tur- 
key. Turkey  had  need  of  all  of  her  available  forces  for  the 
defense  of  her  own  lands;  she  could  ill  afford  to  spare  troops 
from  her  hard-pressed  Asiatic  ironts  to  back  Bulgaria's  imperial- 
istic ambitions  in  Europe. 

Turkish  and  Teutonic  military  necessities  seemingly  left 
Bulgaria  almost  alone  to  bear  the  burden  of  Mittel-Europa  in 
the  Balkans.  And  a  growing  burden  it  was.  Not  only  was 
the  AlHed  expeditionary  force  at  Salonica  steadily  augmented 
by  British  and  French  reenforcements,  but  there  came  also  a 
detachment  from  Russia,  contingents  from  Albania  and  Italy, 
and  a  force  of  some  120,000  Serbians  who  had  been  assembled 
and  organized  on  the  island  of  Corfu.  Altogether  by  August, 
1916,  General  Sarrail,  the  Allied  commander  at  Salonica,  had 
at  his  disposal  a  formidable  army-group  of  700,000  men.  These 
troops  were  flung  out  on  a  fan-shaped  front  in  Greek  Macedonia 
north  of  Salonica :  the  left  flank  was  close  to  the  Serbian  frontier 
in  the  mountains  south  of  Monastir;  the  center  was  pushed 
up  the  Vardar  valley  to  the  border  towns  of  Gievgheli  and  Doiran, 
forty  miles  north  of  Salonica ;  and  the  right  wing  rested  on  the 
Struma  River  and  Lake  Tahynos,  with  outposts  even  farther 
to  the  northeast.  On  August  21, 19 16,  the  French  War  Office  an- 
nounced that  General  Sarrail's  forces  "  were  taking  the  offensive 
on  the  entire  Macedonian  front."  In  that  event,  the  Bulgarians 
would  be  obliged  to  devote  all  their  efforts  to  the  defense  of  their 
recent  conquests  in  southern  Serbia ;  they  would  be  in  no  posi- 
tion to  cross  the  Danube  and  assail  Rumania.  Rumania  hesi- 
tated no  longer. 

Negotiations  between  Rumania  and  the  Entente  had  already 
reached  fruition  in  a  secret  treaty  signed  on  August  17,  191 6. 
By  this  treaty  Rumania  agreed  to  break  off  all  economic  rela- 
tions with  Mittel-Europa  and  to  declare  war  and  begin  offensive 
operations  in  ten  days ;  in  return,  France,  Great  Britain,  Italy, 
and  Russia  assured  Rumania  of  the  special  assistance  both  of 
Russian  armies  and  of  General  Sarrail's  army  at  Salonica,  and 


1 84         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

promised  to  reward  her  with  Bukowina,  Transylvania,  and  the 
Banat  of  Temesvar.  On  August  27,  true  to  its  word,  the  Govern- 
ment of  King  Ferdinand  declared  war  against  Austria-Hungary. 
To  the  press  the  Government  explained  that,  although  Rumania 
had  formerly  been  in  defensive  alliance  with  the  Dual  Monarchy, 
altered  circumstances  constrained  her  to  resume  full  Hberty  of 
action  and  to  join  the  Entente  Powers  in  order  to  safeguard  her 
national  interests  and  to  emancipate  the  three  milHon  Rumans 
resident  in  Austria-Hungary.  Germany,  Turkey,  and  Bulgaria, 
as  allies  of  Austria-Hungary,  promptly  declared  war  against 
Rumania. 

For  the  Central  Powers,  the  participation  of  Rumania  in  the 
war  on  the  side  of  their  adversaries  was  the  culminating  point 
in  a  period  of  bitter  disappointment.  The  tremendous  German 
effort  at  Verdun  (February- July,  191 6)  had  won  a  few  ruined 
forts  and  desolated  villages,  but  not  victory;  after  July  i, 
when  the  Anglo-French  drive  on  the  Somme  began,  the  Ger- 
mans seemed  unable  even  to  hold  their  own  on  the  Western 
Front;  the  Austrians,  likewise,  after  attempting  an  offensive 
(May)  against  Italy,  had  been  thrown  back  on  the  defensive 
and  had  been  driven  out  of  Gorizia  (August  9) ;  the  Eastern 
Front,  weakened  to  supply  men  for  the  Teutonic  thrusts  against 
Italy  and  France,  had  been  seriously  dented  by  the  Russians 
(June- August) ;  and  now  at  the  close  of  August  the  intervention 
of  Rumania  added  600,000  bayonets  to  the  ''ring  of  steel'' 
surrounding  the  Central  Powers  and  900  miles  to  the  front 
which  the  Central  Powers  had  to  defend.  It  was  natural,  if 
not  wholly  fair,  that  these  disasters  should  popularly  be  ascribed 
to  the  strategy  pursued  during  the  first  half  of  the  year  191 6  by 
General  Erich  von  Falkenhayn,  chief  of  the  German  General  Staff. 

The  dismissal  of  Falkenhayn  on  August  29  —  two  days  after 
Rumania's  declaration  of  war  —  betokened  a  desperate  resolve 
on  the  part  of  the  German  Government  to  stem  the  tide  of 
reverses.  The  most  popular  of  German  field  commanders, 
Field  Marshal  Paul  von  Hindenburg,  hero  of  Tannenberg, 
conqueror  of  Russian  Poland,  and  commander-in-chief  of  the 
German  armies  on  the  Eastern  Front,  was  chosen  to  succeed 
Falkenhayn  as  chief  of  the  general  staff.  Ludendorff,  who  had 
formerly  been  Hindenburg's  chief  of  staff  on  the  Russian  front, 
now  became  quartermaster-general  and  was  recognized  as  Hin- 
denburg's "  right-hand  man." 

The  effects  of  Hindenburg's  appointment  were  soon  apparent. 
The  command  of  the  armies  on  the  Western  Front  was  reorgan- 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     185 

ized,  with  Field  Marshal  Duke  Albrecht  of  Wurttemberg  as 
commander  of  the  northern  army  group,  Crown  Prince  Rup- 
precht  of  Bavaria  as  commander  of  the  central  group  (including 
the  region  of  the  Somme),  and  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince 
Frederick  WilHam  in  charge  of  the  Verdun  army  group.  On 
the  Russian  Front,  Prince  Leopold  of  Bavaria  and  the  Austrian 
Archduke  Charles  Francis  were  the  titular  commanders  of  army 
groups,  but  operations  were  really  directed  by  trusted  German 
staff  officers.  In  conferences  held  at  German  Headquarters 
behind  the  Eastern  Front  in  September,  1916,  it  was  decided 
to  concentrate  the  energies  of  Mittel-Europa  for  the  present  upon 
a  great  offensive  against  Rumania.  The  crushing  of  Rumania 
would  be  not  only  a  highly  spectacular  achievement  but  an 
object-lesson  to  neutral  Powers  such  as  Greece  and  the  United 
States  and  a  source  of  renewed  morale  to  the  citizens  of  the  Cen- 
tral Empires. 

To  crush  Rumania,  Hindenburg  collected  a  composite  Bulgar- 
Turco-Teutonic  army.  Teutons  were  brought  from  the  Eastern 
and  Western  Fronts.  Hindenburg,  knowing  that  the  Russians 
had  already  exhausted  their  surplus  of  munitions,  beHeved 
that  his  eastern  lines  could  be  securely  held  by  somewhat  dimin- 
ished numbers.  Feeling,  moreover,  that  the  protracted  battle 
of  the  Somme  was  gradually  exhausting  Anglo-French  reserves 
of  men  and  materiel,  he  was  wilHng  to  run  the  risk  of  drawing 
off  a  few  German  defenders  from  that  area,  even  if  thereby  he 
must  forego  in  the  near  future  another  Teutonic  offensive  on 
the  Western  Front.  The  Austro-Hungarians  could  rely  on  the 
rocky  heights  east  of  Gorizia  and  the  naturally  impregnable 
Carso  plateau  to  halt  the  Italian  offensive ;  they,  too,  could 
now  spare  men  for  a  campaign  against  Rumania.  Besides, 
Hindenburg  prevailed  upon  Turkey  to  overlook  her  own  needs 
in  Asia  and  upon  Bulgaria  to  weaken  the  Macedonian  front. 
If  the  latter  should  be  obliged  to  yield  some  ground  to  General 
Sarrail's  Salonica  army,  she  was  assured  of  Teutonic  aid  in  recov- 
ering it  as  soon  as  Rumania  should  be  crushed.  Incidentally, 
Bulgaria  had  not  forgotten  Rumania's  hostility  to  her  in  the 
second  Balkan  War;  she  had  a  territorial  dispute  of  her  own 
with  Rumania. 

Meanwhile,  the  Rumanian  General  Staff,  counting  upon 
General  Sarrail  in  Macedonia  to  engage  the  attention  of  Bul- 
garia and  upon  Russia's  formal  promise  to  inaugurate  a  violent 
offensive  in  Bukowina  and  thereby  prevent  the  shifting  of  Austro- 
German  troops  from  Poland  and  Galicia,  threw  the  bulk  of  its 


i86        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

available  forces  into  Transylvania,  with  little  regard  to  the 
possibility  of  counter-attacks.  The  Ruman-speaking  prin- 
cipality of  Transylvania,  for  many  years  an  integral  part  of  the 


Kingdom  of  Hungary,  lay  in  the  acute  angle  between  the  Car- 
pathians and  the  Transylvanian  Alps,  half  surrounded  to  the 
east  and  west  by  Rumania.  In  fact,  Rumania  bore  some  re- 
semblance to  the  open  jaws  of  a  pair  of  gigantic  pincers  — 
Moldavia  forming  the  upper  jaw,  Wallachia  the  lower  —  with 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     187 

Transylvania  caught  in  between  them.  It  was  the  purpose 
of  the  Rumanian  General  Staff  that  Transylvania  should  be 
wrested  from  Hungary  by  the  simultaneous  pressure  of  both 
jaws.  Accordingly,  the  Rumanians  pressed  heavily  on  both 
the  Wallachian  and  the  Moldavian  fronts.  From  Moldavia 
they  swiftly  penetrated  the  chief  passes  leading  through  the 
Carpathians  into  eastern  Transylvania,  and  within  a  fortnight 
they  had  reached  the  valley  of  the  upper  Maros  and  the  upper 
Aluta  about  twenty  miles  inside  the  frontier.  At  the  same  time 
they  advanced  from  Wallachia,  passed  the  "Iron  Gates"  of  the 
Danube,  took  Orsova,  and  marched  northward  along  the  rail- 
way to  Mehadia.  Other  forces  penetrated  the  mountain  passes 
between  these  extreme  flanks  of  the  Rumanian  front  and  de- 
scended into  the  valleys  of  Transylvania. 

Within  three  weeks  of  Rumania's  declaration  of  war,  one-fourth 
of  Transylvania  was  "delivered"  from  Magyar  rule,  and  some 
7000  prisoners  were  captured.  But  while  the  Rumanians, 
flushed  with  victory,  were  still  deep  in  Transylvania,  signs  were 
at  hand  of  an  impending  counter-stroke.  Germany  had  sent 
two  of  her  ablest  strategists,  Mackensen  and  Falkenhayn, 
to  the  Rumanian  front,  and  had  the  Rumanian  air-scouts  ven- 
tured far  behind  the  Austrian  lines  they  would  have  seen,  at 
Temesvar  and  other  Hungarian  railway  centers,  grim  howitzers 
and  immense  stores  of  munitions  accumulating  ominously. 
Or,  could  the  same  air-scouts  have  perceived  the  deadly  prep- 
arations going  forward  simultaneously  in  Bulgaria,  they  would 
have  wondered  at  the  temerity  and  rashness  of  Rumania's  par- 
ticipation in  the  Great  War. 

Field  Marshal  von  Mackensen,  who  had  cooperated  with  Hin- 
denburg  in  the  great  German  invasion  of  Russia  in  19 15  and 
had  subsequently  superintended  the  conquest  of  Serbia  in  Octo- 
ber and  November,  191 5,  unexpectedly  appeared  in  the  second 
week  of  September,  191 6,  as  commander  of  a  formidable  Bulgar- 
Teu tonic  army  ready,  to  pounce  upon  the  exposed  and  poorly 
defended  southern  border  of  Rumania,  while  General  von  Falken- 
hayn took  command  of  a  powerful  Austro- German  army  in 
Transylvania.  The  German  General  Staff  had  evolved  a  mas- 
terful plan  of  strategy.  Falkenhayn  would  press  the  main 
Rumanian  armies  so  hard  that  no  considerable  portion  of  them 
could  be  dispatched  from  Transylvania  to  the  Dobrudja;  and 
Mackensen,  encountering  little  armed  opposition,  would  invade 
the  Dobrudja  and  cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  Rumanians  from 
Transylvania.     In  this  fashion,  Rumania  would  be  ground  to 


1 88         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

bits  between  the  jaws  of  Falkenhayn  and  Mackensen;  her 
army  would  be  destroyed  and  her  complete  conquest  assured. 

Mackensen's  army  advanced  in  the  Dobrudja  so  quickly 
that  in  a  few  days  it  was  fifty  miles  north  of  the  Bulgarian  fron- 
tier and  within  ten  miles  of  the  very  important  Constanza- 
Chernavoda  railway  which  connects  Bucharest  with  Constanza, 
the  chief  Rumanian  port  on  the  Black  Sea.  While  Russian 
troops  were  being  rushed  to  the  assistance  of  the  hard-pressed 
Rumanians  in  the  Dobrudja,  General  von  Falkenhayn  dealt 
the  Rumanian  invaders  of  Transylvania  a  series  of  hard  blows. 
The  cities  of  Hermannstadt,  Schassburg,  and  Kronstadt  were 
in  turn  relieved,  and  the  Rumanian  columns  in  eastern  Transyl- 
vania were  soon  in  headlong  flight  toward  the  Rumanian  frontier. 
By  the  middle  of  October  the  Rumanians  had  been  driven  back 
all  along  the  hne ;  Transylvania  had  been  cleared,  and  the  Austro- 
German  armies  were  gaining  footholds  on  Rumanian  soil. 

By  this  time  Mackensen  had  brought  up  a  sufficient  number 
of  big  guns  to  break  through  the  Russo-Rumanian  fines  south 
of  the  Chernavoda-Constanza  railway ;  Constanza  fell  on  Octo- 
ber 2  2  —  just  eight  weeks  after  Rumania's  entry  into  the  war. 
In  vain  Russia  sent  one  of  her  ablest  generals,  Vladimir  Sakharov, 
with  reenforcements  to  stiffen  the  Dobrudja  line ;  the  Constanza- 
Chernavoda  railway  was  irretrievably  lost,  and  the  best  Sakharov 
could  do  was  to  reorganize  the  shattered  Russo-Rumanian  army 
in  northern  Dobrudja. 

No  aid  was  forthcoming  to  the  Rumanians  in  the  west.  There 
Falkenhayn  captured  Vulcan  Pass  on  October  25,  defeated  the 
Rumanians  in  a  bloody  battle,  and  on  November  21  captured 
Craiova,  seventy-five  miles  south  of  the  frontier.  By  this  bold 
stroke  Falkenhayn  won  the  western  third  of  Wallachia.  The 
Rumanian  force  operating  in  the  extreme  west,  finding  itself 
completely  cut  off  from  the  other  Rumanian  armies,  hastily 
evacuated  Orsova  and  Turnu-Severin  and  retired  into  near-by 
mountains,  but  was  soon  compelled  to  surrender. 

With  frantic  haste  General  Averescu,  the  Rumanian  com- 
mander-in-chief, endeavored  to  marshal  his  demoralized  army 
behind  the  Aluta  River,  ninety  miles  west  of  Bucharest.  But 
the  line  of  the  Aluta  was  turned  on  both  flanks.  From  the 
north,  Austro-German  troops  advanced  down  the  slopes  of  the 
Transylvanian  Alps  into  the  Wallachian  plain,  behind  the  Aluta. 
On  the  south,  Mackensen  flung  strong  forces  across  the  Danube 
and  by  November  27  reached  Alexandria.  With  both  flanks 
crumpling,  the  Aluta  line  was  no  longer  tenable,  and  General 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     189 

Averescu  fell  back  to  his  last  line  of  defense,  the  Arges  River, 
less  than  ten  miles  west  of  Bucharest.  Again  Mackensen  and 
Falkenhayn  resorted  to  their  flanking  tactics,  from  the  south 
and  from  the  north  respectively ;  and  the  Arges  line  too  had  to 
be  abandoned. 

With  its  supposedly  invulnerable  cincture  of  nineteen  armored 
forts  and  redoubts,  constructed  by  the  famous  Belgian  engineer, 
Brialmont,  Bucharest  was  one  of  the  most  formidable  fortresses 
in  Europe,  but  the  Rumanians  made  no  serious  attempt  to  defend 
their  capital  against  Mackensen's  heavy  howitzers.  On  Decem- 
ber 6,  —  his  birthday,  —  Mackensen  entered  Bucharest  in 
triumph.  On  the  same  day  the  city  of  Ploechti,  thirty  miles 
north  of  Bucharest,  and  the  whole  line  of  the  Bucharest-Kron- 
stadt  railway  fell  into  the  invader's  hand.  In  three  weeks' 
campaign,  November  15-December  6,  Falkenhayn  and  Macken- 
sen had  routed  the  Rumanian  army,  taken  over  80,000  prisoners, 
and  conquered  the  greater  part  of  Wallachia,  including  the 
capital  city  of  Bucharest. 

Violent  Russian  counter-attacks  in  the  Carpathians  failed 
to  stay  the  enemy.  By  the  middle  of  January,  191 7,  the  Ru- 
manians had  lost  all  Wallachia,  all  the  Dobrudja,  and  a  portion 
of  southern  Moldavia ;  their  king  was  at  Jassy  and  their  armed 
remnants,  supported  by  Russians,  were  standing  at  bay  along 
the  Sereth  River  from  Galatz  westwards. 

The  collapse  of  Rumania  was  due  in  large  part  to  the  failure 
of  General  Sarrail  to  exert  sufficient  pressure  on  the  Macedonian 
front.  General  Sarrail,  it  will  be  recalled,  had  announced  on 
August  20  that  he  was  taking  the  offensive,  with  his  700,000 
Allied  troops,  against  the  Bulgarians.  But  this  /'offensive" 
was  either  a  sham  or  a  fiasco.  Instead  of  driving  northward 
into  Serbia  and  Bulgaria,  Sarrail  actually  lost  ground.  His 
left  wing  was  beaten  back  from  Fiorina,  and  the  Bulgarians  in 
this  sector  occupied  Koritza  and  Kastoria.  At  the  same  time, 
on  Sarrail's  right  wing,  Bulgarian  troops  seized  the  railway 
between  Drama,  Seres,  and  Demir-Hissar,  and  on  September 
12  occupied  the  Greek  port  of  Kavala. 

The  months  of  October,  November,  and  December,  —  so 
disastrous  for  Rumania,  —  witnessed  no  significant  operations 
either  on  the  right  wing  or  in  the  center  of  Sarrail's  line ;  only 
on  the  left  wing  was  anything  achieved.  Here  the  reorganized 
Serbian  army  of  120,000  men  unrelentingly  fought  its  way,  mile 
by  mile,  northward  toward  Monastir.  After  two  months' 
plodding  and  pushing  over  bleak  hills  and  across  dreary  ravines 


IQO         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  Serbians  at  length  on  November  19, 1916,  reentered  Monastir. 
It  was  exactly  four  years  since  Monastir  had  been  captured  from 
Turkey  by  the  Serbs,  and  almost  one  year  since  it  had  been 
occupied  by  the  Bulgarians. 

Despite  this  Serbian  achievement,  the  fact  remained  that 
the  Bulgarians  not  only  had  been  able  to  transfer  troops  and 
guns  from  Macedonia  to  Dobrudja  in  order  to  assist  in  the  Austro- 
German  conquest  of  Rumania,  but  also  had  prevented  the  Allied 
force  at  Salonica  from  inflicting  any  grave  injury  on  their  weak- 
ened Macedonian  front;  if  they  had  lost  Monastir,  they  had 
gained  Kavala.  Of  General  Sarrail's  seeming  inactivity  in  this 
crisis  there  were  two  explanations.  In  the  first  place,  his  army 
was  heterogeneous,  and  as  yet  badly  discipHned  and  poorly 
equipped  and  munitioned.  In  the  second  place,  he  did  not 
dare  move  his  forces  far  forward  so  long  as  a  hostile  Greek  army 
might  assail  him  from  the  rear. 

It  was  the  Greek  King  Constantine  again  who  paralyzed 
AlHed  plans  to  relieve  a  Balkan  state  hard-pressed  by  Teutonic- 
Bulgarian  invaders.  When  Rumania  entered  the  war  in  August, 
191 6,  confident  of  an  easy  triumph,  Constantine  exultingly 
predicted  that  she  would  speedily  be  conquered  by  German 
arms.  The  event  confirmed  the  Greek  king's  prophecy  and 
strengthened  at  once  his  devotion  to  Germany  and  his  contempt 
for  the  AUies.  Even  the  seizure  of  the  Greek  port  of  Kavala  by 
the  Bulgarians  in  September  —  the  very  port  whose  peaceful 
cession  to  Bulgaria  had  been  advocated  by  Venizelos  and  vehe- 
mently resisted  by  the  king  only  the  year  before  —  was  now 
viewed  most  complacently  by  Constantine.  It  appeared  as 
if  Constantine  had  some  sort  of  formal  agreement  with  the  Cen- 
tral Empires  and  only  awaited  a  favorable  opportunity  to  assail 
the  Allies  as  suddenly  and  as  theatrically  as  King  Ferdinand 
of  Bulgaria  had  done. 

Until  Rumania  entered  the  war,  the  Allies  had  labored  chiefly 
by  diplomacy  to  enlist  the  support,  or  at  least  the  benevolent 
neutrality,  of  King  Constantine  and  his  succession  of  puppet 
premiers.  Thereafter  they  resorted  to  coercion.  In  September 
Greece  was  compelled  to  surrender  her  telegraphs  and  postal 
system  to  Anglo-French  authorities.  In  October  the  French 
Admiral  du  Fournet  seized  the  Greek  navy ;  all  German,  Austro- 
Hungarian,  Turkish,  and  Bulgarian  diplomatic  representatives 
were  unceremoniously  expelled  from  Greece;  Athenian  news- 
papers were  subjected  to  French  censorship;  Anglo-French 
marines  were  landed  at  Piraeus  and  on  Greek  islands  in   the 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN   1916     191 

JEgesin ;  an  Anglo-French  fleet  trained  its  guns  on  Athens ;  the 
coast  of  Greece  was  blockaded;  and  in  December  Constantine 
was  forced  not  only  to  transfer  his  troops  to  the  southernmost 
districts  of  Greece  but  also  to  turn  over  to  the  Allies  a  consid- 
erable part  of  the  munitions  and  artillery  of  the  Greek  army. 

These  measures,  necessary  as  they  were  from  the  Allied  point 
of  view,  served  to  render  King  Constantine  still  more  truculent 
and  to  divide  the  Greek  people  into  two  hostile  camps.  On  the 
one  hand,  Venizelos  applauded  the  drastic  measures  of  the 
Allies  and  formally  repudiated  the  king;  he  established  a  pro- 
visional government  in  Crete  and  Macedonia  and  on  his  own 
account  issued  a  declaration  of  war  against  Bulgaria  (November 
28,  19 1 6).  On  the  other  hand,  the  Greek  army  chiefs,  with  a 
sizable  popular  following,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  king  and 
denounced  the  '^treason"  of  Venizelos  and  the  ''hypocrisy" 
of  the  Allies ;  they  were  intent  on  aiding  the  Germans  and  em- 
barrassing General  Sarrail  at  Salonica.  Early  in  December 
there  were  riotous  demonstrations  in  Athens  against  the  Allies, 
and  hundreds  of  Venizelists  were  clubbed  or  imprisoned.  Only 
the  landing  of  Anglo-French  marines  restored  order. 

Because  of  the  disquieting  situation  in  Greece  and  because  of 
the  disorganized  condition  of  Sarrail's  motley  forces  in  Mace- 
donia, no  Anglo-French  aid  was  forthcoming  to  Rumania.  Rus- 
sia, it  is  true,  sent  troops  into  Moldavia  and  the  Dobrudja,  but 
they  were  too  few  in  number  and  too  ill  munitioned  to  stay  the 
oncoming  rush  of  Teutonic-Bulgarian  invaders.  Besides,  it 
was  subsequently  disclosed  that  the  Tsar's  government  at  the 
time  of  Rumania's  direst  need  was  playing  a  double  game. 
Russia,  for  the  sake  of  retaining  Bessarabia  and  making  Rumania 
an  object  of  her  own  imperialistic  ambition,  did  not  desire  her 
southern  neighbor  to  acquire  too  great  prestige  by  a  decisive 
victory  over  Austria-Hungary,  and  therefore  neglected  to  assist 
her  until  too  late.  Struck  in  the  face  by  Germany  and  in  the 
side  by  Bulgaria,  and  stabbed  in  the  back  by  Russia,  Rumania 
collapsed  barely  three  months  after  her  participation  in  the 
Great  War. 

STALEMATE  AND  THE  TEUTONIC  PEACE  DRIVE 

The  Allies,  hopeful  in  midsummer  of  19 16  that  their  fortunes 
were  at  last  in  the  ascendant,  had  counted  upon  Rumania's 
intervention  as  the  last  straw  which  would  break  the  back  of 
Germanized  Mittel-Europa.     At  the  close  of  19 16,  however,  it 


192         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

was  obvious  that  the  net  result  of  Rumania's  participation  in 
the  Great  War  had  been  favorable  to  the  Central  Empires. 
German  prestige  and  Austro-Hungarian  confidence,  shaken 
by  the  failures  at  Verdun,  on  the  Somme,  in  Volhynia,  in  Galicia, 
in  Bukowina,  and  on  the  Isonzo,  were  restored  by  the  spectacular 
campaign  in  Rumania.  To  be  sure,  the  battle-front  was  now 
approximately  two  hundred  miles  longer  than  before  Rumania's 
intervention,  but  actually  fewer  men  would  be  required  to  oppose, 
or  to  pursue,  the  shattered  fragments  of  the  Rumanian  field 
army,  which  had  lost  at  least  two-thirds  of  its  effectives,  than 
had  previously  been  required  to  guard  nine  hundred  miles  of 
frontier  with  Rumania's  long-delayed  intervention  a  standing 
menace.  Moreover,  a  large  quantity  of  Rumanian  wheat, 
which  British  agents  had  purchased  to  prevent  its  exportation 
to  the  Central  Powers,  was  now  in  possession  of  the  Teutons; 
and  the  fertile  grain-fields  of  Wallachia,  scientifically  cultivated 
under  the  supervision  of  German  agricultural  experts,  might 
relieve  the  shortage  of  foodstuffs  in  Austria-Hungary  and  Ger- 
many, in  case  the  war  should  be  prolonged  over  another  harvest 
season.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  in  capturing  the  Ru- 
manian city  of  Ploechti,  in  the  Prahova  valley,  the  Germans 
won  the  center  of  Europe's  richest  oil-fields,  although  the  oil- 
wells  were  found  in  flames  and  the  oil- tanks  destroyed.  The 
economic  results  of  the  campaign  of  Mackensen  and  Falkenhayn 
were  as  important  as  its  strategy  was  brilliant. 

The  only  Allied  success  in  the  autumn  of  1916,  which  in  any 
way  could  offset  the  Teutonic  conquest  of  Rumania,  was  a  French 
counter-stroke  at  Verdun.  In  late  October  and  early  November, 
General  Nivelle  launched  a  furious  attack  on  the  east  bank  of 
the  Meuse,^  north  of  Verdun,  broke  through  the  German  line 
on  a  four-mile  front  to  a  depth  of  two  miles,  and  recovered  Forts 
Douaumont  and  Vaux  and  the  village  of  Damloup.  In  mid- 
December,  a  second  French  assault  carried  German  trenches 
on  a  front  of  six  miles  and  took  several  other  villages,  with  11,000 
prisoners.  Although  the  territory  regained  by  these  two  French 
counter-strokes  represented  only  a  small  part  of  what  had  been 
lost  in  the  vicinity  of  Verdun  between  February  and  July,  never- 
theless the  significance  of  the  French  exploit  was  very  real. 
With  trifling  sacrifice  of  men,  the  French  had  easily  regained 
the  most  important  strategic  positions  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Meuse  —  positions  which  the  Prussian  Crown  Prince  had  cap- 

*  The  French  operations,  under  the  general  command  of  Nivelle^  were  actually 
conducted  by  General  Mangin. 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     193 

tured  only  after  desperate,  protracted,  and  frightfully  sanguinary 
battles.  The  moral  of  which  was  that  while  the  Germans  might 
still  win  sensational  victories  on  other  fronts  —  for  example, 
over  little  Rumania  —  the  Allies  were  gradually  gaining  military 
superiority  on  the  substantial  and  all-important  Western  Front. 

Nevertheless,  for  the  moment,  Mackensen's  spectacular 
exploits  in  Rumania  loomed  larger  in  popular  imagination  than 
Nivelle's  counter-attack  at  Verdun.  If  the  Germans  had  failed 
to  obtain  a  final  military  decision  in  191 6,  it  was  equally  true 
that  the  Allies  had  failed  too.  And  the  result  was  bitter  disap- 
pointment and  depression  within  each  of  the  Entente  Powers. 

In  Great  Britain,  Lord  Northcliffe,  the  proprietor  of  the 
London  Times  and  of  several  other  influential  newspapers, 
assailed  Mr.  Asquith's  Government  and  sowed  serious  dissension 
between  the  premier  and  David  Lloyd  George.  Early  in  Decem- 
ber, 1 91 6,  Lord  Northcliffe's  journalistic  campaign  received 
sufficient  approbation  throughout  the  country  and  in  parlia- 
ment to  lead  to  the  resignation  of  the  Asquith  cabinet.  After 
the  refusal  of  Andrew  Bonar  Law,  the  Unionist  leader,  to  become 
prime  minister,  David  Lloyd  George  was  invited  to  form  a  minis- 
try and  his  acceptance  was  announced  on  December  6.  The 
Lloyd  George  cabinet,  like  the  most  recent  Asquith  cabinet,  was 
a  coalition  affair,  representing  the  Liberal,  Unionist,  and  Labor 
parties,  but  with  the  exception  of  the  premiership  itself  the 
most  important  posts  in  the  new  ministry  were  assigned  to  Union- 
ists rather  than  to  Liberals;  Arthur  J.  Balfour  succeeded  Sir 
Edward  Grey  ^  as  foreign  secretary ;  Bonar  Law  became  chan- 
cellor of  the  exchequer  and  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons; 
and  the  ''war  cabinet,"  a  steering  committee  of  five  members 
newly  created  from  within  the  ministry,  comprised  the  premier, 
Bonar  Law,  Lord  Milner,  Earl  Curzon,  and  Arthur  Henderson, 
—  one  Liberal,  three  Unionists,  and  one  Laborite. 

In  France,  Premier  Briand  managed  to  retain  office  and  the 
confidence  of  a  majority  of  his  countrymen  by  constituting, 
like  Lloyd  George,  a  special  centralizing  ''war  committee'' 
within  his  cabinet.  The  French  war  committee,  as  announced 
on  December  12,  comprised,  in  addition  to  the  premier,  Alex- 
andre Ribot,  General  Lyautey,^  Admiral  Lacaze,  and  Albert 
Thomas,  ministers  respectively  of  finance,  war,  marine,  and 
munitions.     Shortly   afterwards,    General   Joffre   was   made    a 

^  Viscount  Grey  of  Falloden. 

2  General  Hubert  Lyautey,  who  had  made  a  name  for  himself  in  Morocco,  was 
just  succeeding  General  Roques  as  minister  of  war. 


194         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Marshal  of  France  and  retired  from  active  command  of  the  French 
forces,  his  successor  being  General  Robert  Nivelle,  the  leader 
of  the  recently  successful  counter-attack  at  Verdun. 

In  Russia,  affairs  were  going  from  bad  to  worse.  At  the 
very  time  when  the  army  was  recovering  from  its  defeats  and 
demoralization  of  191 5  and  becoming  once  more  a  potential 
weapon  of  offense  against  the  Teutons,  the  Tsar  and  his  entourage 
were  willfully  blinding  their  eyes  to  the  signs  of  economic  dis- 
tress throughout  the  empire  and  persistently  closing  their 
ears  to  popular  demands  for  political  reform.  Boris  Stiirmer, 
who  served  as  premier  during  the  greater  part  of  the  critical 
year  191 6,  was  a  confirmed  reactionary  and  was  suspected  of 
pro- German  leanings.  He  muzzled  the  press,  forced  the  able 
and  loyally  pro-Entente  Sazonov  out  of  the  ministry  of  foreign 
affairs  (August,  191 6),  appointed  ultra-conservatives  to  office, 
suspended  the  Duma  from  July  to  November,  executed  obnoxious 
autocratic  decrees,  and  endeavored  to  repress  altogether  popular 
organizations,  such  as  the  All-Russian  Union  of  Zemstvos,  the 
Union  of  Municipalities,  and  the  War  Industries  Committee, 
formed  for  the  twofold  purpose  of  advocating  democratic  reform 
and  supporting  the  government  in  the  vigorous  prosecution  of 
the  war.  In  October,  Stiirmer  placed  all  meetings  of  these  popu- 
lar organizations  under  police  supervision;  and,  to  cap  the 
climax,  he  appointed  as  minister  of  the  interior  M.  Protopopov, 
who  was  the  most  zealous  prosecutor  of  liberals  in  all  Russia  and 
who  was  known  to  cherish  German  sympathies. 

These  and  other  causes  of  complaint  united  nearly  all  Russian 
factions  against  the  government.  But  when  at  length,  in  Novem- 
ber, 1916,  Stiirmer  resigned,  the  Tsar  apparently  had  still 
learned  no  lesson,  for  he  promptly  raised  to  the  premiership 
Alexander  Trepov,  a  reactionary  of  the  same  faith  and  outlook 
as  Stiirmer  and  Protopopov.  The  year  191 6  closed  in  Russia 
with  a  stormy  session  of  the  Duma  in  which  Professor  Paul 
Milyukov,  leader  of  the  Constitutional  Democrats,  indicted 
the  government  and  was  followed  by  several  speakers  who  re- 
ported sensational  instances  of  criminal  negligence  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  war.  The  Duma  passed  a  resolution  affirming 
that  certain  *'dark  forces"  were  tending  to  paralyze  the  nation's 
energies  and  to  cause  disorganization  in  all  departments.  Russia 
was  rapidly  becoming  volcanic,  but  the  weak  Tsar,  the  ''little 
father,"  was  hopelessly  deaf  and  blind. 

As  for  the  Central  Empires,  the  common  people  were  tempo- 
rarily reassured  by  the  surprisingly  speedy  conquest  of  Rumania 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     195 

and  were  therefore  less  critical  of  their  civil  and  military  authori- 
ties. In  Austria-Hungary,  the  death  of  the  aged  Emperor- 
King  Francis  Joseph  on  November  21,  191 6,  which  should  have 
been,  according  to  Allied  forecasts,  the  signal  for  the  dissolution 
of  the  Dual  Monarchy,  was  succeeded  quietly,  and  apparently 
with  cordial  popular  acquiescence,  by  the  coronation  of  the 
Archduke  Charles,  Francis  Joseph's  grand-nephew,  as  emperor 
of  Austria  and  king  of  Hungary.  In  Germany,  a  ''Patriotic 
Auxiliary  Service  Act,"  passed  by  the  Reichstag  on  December 
2,  subjected  all  males  between  sixteen  and  sixty  years  of  age 
not  yet  called  to  the  colors  to  auxiliary  war  work,  such  as  service 
in  war  industries,  agriculture,  and  nursing  the  sick;  it  was  a 
kind  of  levee  en  masse  and  represented  the  closest  sort  of  coopera- 
tion between  the  German  government  and  the  German  people 
in  a  supreme  endeavor  to  win  the  war. 

Meanwhile,  the  Teutons  were  doing  everything  in  their  power 
to  strengthen  and  consolidate  Mittel-Europa.  Laborers  were 
being  deported  in  large  numbers  from  Belgium  and  from  the 
conquered  districts  of  France  and  Rumania  for  work  in  Ger- 
man factories  and  fields.  Encouragement  was  being  given  to 
the  "national  aspirations"  of  the  Belgian  Flemings  and  more 
especially  of  the  Russian  Poles. 

In  glaring  contrast  to  the  failure  of  Russia  to  establish  and 
maintain  autonomy  in  Poland,  the  Teutons  after  driving  the 
Russians  out  of  the  country  set  about  elaborating  measures 
of  self-government  for  the  Poles.  On  November  5,  1916,  the 
German  and  Austrian  emperors  conjointly  published  a  proclama- 
tion promising  to  create  an  ''independent"  Kingdom  of  Poland, 
"a  national  state  with  an  hereditary  monarch  and  a  constitu- 
tional government,"  in  "intimate  relations"  with  Austria-Hun- 
gary and  Germany.  This  proclamation  was  read  publicly  at 
Lublin  and  at  Warsaw,  in  the  Polish  language,  and  was  followed 
by  the  hoisting  of  Polish  flags  while  Teutonic  military  bands 
played  the  Polish  national  anthem.  A  Regency  was  set  up, 
and  elections  were  instituted  for  the  State  Council,  or  upper 
house,  of  the  future  Polish  Parliament.  The  Polish  Jews, 
moreover,  were  conciliated  by  the  grant  of  special  religious  and 
social  privileges. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  "independent  kingdom  of 
Poland  in  intimate  relations  with  Austria-Hungary  and  Ger- 
many" was  not  intended  to  be  a  national  state  for  all  Polish 
people ;  the  Polish  provinces  of  Prussia  were  to  remain  Prussian 
as  before,  and  Polish  Galicia,  while  securing  a  larger  measure 


196         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

of  autonomy  within  the  Dual  Monarchy,  was  not  to  be  united 
with  independent  Poland.  Austro- German  magnanimity  was 
to  be  displayed  only  in  Russian  Poland,  and  even  there  it  was 
most  properly  suspected  when  proclamations  were  issued  by 
the  German  Governor- General  von  Beseler  at  Warsaw  exhorting 
the  Poles  to  volunteer  for  service  in  the  Polish  army  which  *^  would 
join  in  the  struggle  against  Russia." 

Russia  then  did  grudgingly  in  defeat  what  she  might  have  done 
with  better  grace  during  the  preceding  year.  She  issued  a  coun- 
ter-proclamation, denouncing  the  Austro-German  manifesto 
as  illegal  and  insincere,  threatening  to  treat  as  traitors  rather 
than  as  prisoners  of  war  any  Russian  Poles  captured  from  the 
new  Polish  army,  and  promising  to  create  a  unified  and  autono- 
mous Poland  on  an  ethnographical  basis  (which  would  mean  the 
inclusion  of  Prussian  Poland  and  Austrian  Galicia  as  well  as 
Russian  Poland),  under  the  sovereignty  of  the  Tsar,  after  the 
war.  The  French  and  British  premiers  congratulated  Russia 
upon  her  *' generous  initiative"  and  associated  themselves  with 
Russia's  plans. 

The  Poles  had  no  cause  to  be  pro- German ;  they  were,  in  fact, 
almost  to  a  man  anti-German.  But  many  of  them  were  also, 
quite  naturally,  anti-Russian,  and  these  Poles  perceived  in  Rus- 
sia's promises  as  much  hypocrisy  as  in  the  Teutons'.  On  the 
assumption  that  "a  bird  in  the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush," 
they  were  willing  to  accept  the  German  pronouncement  at  face- 
value  and  to  help  the  Teutons  put  Russia  out  of  the  way.  Their 
day  of  reckoning  with  the  Germans  would  come  later.  Such  was 
the  reasoning  of  the  leaders  of  an  important  political  party  among 
the  Poles,  —  the  Committee  of  National  Defense  (popularly 
called,  from  the  initials  of  its  Polish  name,  the  K.  O.  N.),  —  whose 
most  conspicuous  representative,  General  Pilsudski,  a  truly 
national  hero,  at  once  raised  a  Polish  army  and  put  it  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Austrians.  Pilsudski's  course  was  all  the  more 
popular  with  his  compatriots  since  a  proposal  of  the  United  States, 
in  the  spring  of  1916,  to  organize  relief  for  the  battle-scarred  and 
famished  country  of  Russian  Poland  had  been  brought  to  naught, 
so  Germany  made  it  appear,  by  the  malice  and  meanness  of 
Russia  and  her  allies.^ 

^  The  United  States,  on  February  21,  1916,  asked  Great  Britain  for  permission 
to  send  some  40,000  tons  of  foodstuffs  to  be  distributed  by  an  American  Commis- 
sion among  the  civilian  inhabitants  of  certain  districts  of  Russian  Poland  and  Lithu- 
ania, on  condition  that  the  remainder  be  cared  for  by  Germany  and  that  imported 
foodstuffs  be  used  solely  for  the  need  of  civilians.  Russia  would  agree  to  the  pro- 
posal only  on  the  further  condition  that  the  Central  Empires  provide  relief  for 


i 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     197 

Yet  despite  the  seeming  attachment  of  Poland  to  MiUel-Europa 
and  the  sensational  conquest  of  Rumania,  the  military  authori- 
ties of  Germany  must  have  recognized  in  the  winter  of  191 6- 
191 7  that  they  were  still  far  from  winning  the  war.  Tem- 
porarily Allied  offensives  had  come  to  a  standstill  —  the  Anglo- 
French  on  the  Somme  and  at  Verdun,  the  Italian  at  Gorizia 
and  on  the  Carso,  the  Russian  in  Volhynia  and  Bukowina,  — 
but  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  they  would  be  renewed 
and  when,  with  waxing  man-power  and  increased  unity  and 
efficiency,  they  would  be  pressed  more  decisively  against  Ger- 
many already  utilizing  her  resources  to  the  full.  No  longer, 
apparently,  could  the  Central  Empires  conduct  a  sustained  and 
overpowering  drive  against  any  one  of  their  great  enemies,  such 
as  they  had  conducted  in  France  in  19 14  or  in  Russia  in  191 5. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  the  winning  of  the  Great  War  would  require 
astute  appeals  from  civilians  as  well  as  sledge-hammer  blows 
from  the  military.  A  drive  for  peace,  at  the  psychological 
moment,  might  bring  its  victory  no  less  renowned  than  the  war- 
drive  of  a  Hindenburg  or  a  Mackensen.  To  forward  the  new 
policy,  Gottlieb  von  Jagow,  who  had  been  foreign  secretary  of 
Germany  since  191 2,  was  succeeded  in  December,  1916,  by 
Alfred  Zimmermann. 

It  was  the  ^'psychological  moment"  for  a  Teutonic  peace 
drive.  The  collapse  of  Rumania  meant  little  to  the  strictly 
military  fortunes  of  the  rival  armed  coalitions,  but  it  signified 
much  to  civilian  morale  among  the  belligerents.  A  curiously 
unjustified  optimism  possessed  the  Teutons,  while  an  oddly 
unwarranted  pessimism  seized  the  Allied  nations.  It  was  re- 
markable, on  the  one  hand,  how  loyally  the  subjects  of  the  Dual 
Monarchy  acclaimed  their  new  Emperor-King  Charles  and  how 
universally  the  Germans  supported  the  levee  en  masse,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  how  bitterly  the  influential  Northcliffe  journals 
assailed  Asquith's  British  government,  how  irritably  the  So- 
cialists and  Radicals  in  France  grumbled  at  the  governmental 
authorities,  and  how  profoundly  Russia  was  stirred  by  unrest 
and  rumblings  of  revolution.  Undoubtedly  there  was  a  growing 
war-weariness  everywhere.  ''We  behold,"  said  Pope  Benedict 
XV  in  an  allocution  to  his  cardinals  on  December  4,  1916,  "in 
one  place  the  vile  treatment  inflicted  on  sacred  things  and  on 

Serbia,  Montenegro,  and  Albania ;  and  Great  Britain  indorsed  the  Russian  demand 
on  May  10.  Ten  days  later  Germany  rejected  the  Russo-British  stipulations. 
To  subsequent  humanitarian  appeals  of  the  United  States,  Germany  constantly 
afl&rmed  that  "owing  to  the  cruel  British  blockade  policy"  nothing  could  be 
done. 


198         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ministers  of  religion,  even  of  high  dignity,  although  both  should 
be  inviolable  by  divine  law  and  the  law  of  nations ;  in  another, 
numerous  peaceful  citizens  taken  away  from  their  homes  amid 
tears  of  mothers,  wives,  and  children;  in  another,  open  cities 
and  undefended  populations  made  victims  especially  of  aerial 
raids ;  everywhere  on  land  and  on  sea  such  misdeeds  perpetrated 
as  fill  the  soul  with  horror  and  anguish." 

On  December  12,  1916,  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Bul- 
garia, and  Turkey  simultaneously  submitted  almost  identical 
notes  to  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  Spain,  Switzerland, 
and  the  United  States,  as  well  as  to  other  neutral  Powers  and  to 
the  Vatican,  proposing  ^'to  enter  forthwith  into  peace  negotia- 
tions." No  concrete  terms  were  offered  by  the  Central  Powers, 
but  the  AlHes  were  invited  to  discuss  *'an  appropriate  basis  for 
the  establishment  of  a  lasting  peace,"  and  apparently  the  inten- 
tion was  to  hold  pourparlers  at  The  Hague  during  the  winter, 
while  hostilities  continued.  The  notes  were  forwarded  to  the 
Entente  Powers  without  comment  by  the  neutral  intermediaries. 

Immediately  the  Russian  foreign  minister,  with  the  emphatic 
approval  of  the  Duma,  denounced  the  Teutonic  peace  offer  and 
declared  Russia's  unwilHngness  to  enter  into  any  peace  negotia- 
tions whatsoever.  The  Tsar,  in  a  proclamation  to  his  armies, 
stated  that  ''the  time  has  not  yet  arrived.  The  enemy  has  not 
yet  been  driven  out  of  the  provinces  he  has  occupied.  Russia's 
attainment  of  the  tasks  created  by  the  war  —  regarding  Con- 
stantinople and  the  Dardanelles,  and  the  estab'Hshment  of  a  free 
Poland  embracing  all  three  of  her  racial  districts  —  has  not  yet 
been  guaranteed."  Foreign  Minister  Sonnino  of  Italy  and 
Premier  Briand  of  France  likewise  disclaimed  any  intention  of 
concluding  a  premature  peace.  In  behalf  of  Great  Britain, 
Lloyd  George  declared  that  while  the  Allies  would  wait  to  hear 
what  terms  Germany  had  to  offer,  little  could  be  expected  of 
peace  negotiations  at  the  moment ;  ''the  very  appeal  for  peace," 
he  said,  "was  deHvered  ostentatiously  from  the  triumphal 
chariot  of  Prussian  militarism."  It  would  be  a  "cruel  folly" 
not  to  stop  Germany  from  "swashbuckling  through  the  streets 
of  Europe." 

On  December  30,  a  formal  answer  to  the  peace-note  of  Mittel- 
Europa  was  returned  signed  by  Russia,  France,  Great  Britain, 
Japan,  Italy,  Belgium,  Montenegro,  Portugal,  and  Rumania. 
It  declared  that  "no  peace  is  possible  so  long  as  the  Allies  have 
not  secured  reparation  for  violated  rights  and  liberties,  recogni- 
tion of  the  principle  of  nationality  and  of  the  free  existence  of 


ALLIES  FAIL  TO  OBTAIN  A  DECISION  IN  1916     199 

small  states ;  so  long  as  they  have  not  brought  about  a  settle- 
ment calculated  to  end,  once  and  for  all,  causes  which  have 
constituted  a  perpetual  menace  to  the  nations,  and  to  afford 
the  only  effective  guarantees  for  the  future  security  of  the 
world." 

Beyond  these  references  to  ^'reparation"  and  *' guarantees," 
the  Allied  governments  did  not  indicate  the  terms  on  which 
they  would  consent  to  make  peace.  Evidently  they  were  con- 
vinced of  their  own  ultimate  power  to  dictate  peace,  or  they 
were  determined  to  elicit  a  clear  statement  of  the  war  aims  of 
the  Central  Powers.  They  certainly  knew,  with  the  war  map 
as  it  was  and  with  the  people  of  the  Central  Powers  confident 
of  success,  that  the  responsible  authorities  of  Mittel-Europa 
would  hardly  hazard  a  frank,  pubHc  confession  of  war  aims. 
For  if,  contrary  to  expectations,  these  authorities  should  suggest 
terms  of  peace  conciliatory  enough  to  merit  serious  discussion 
by  the  Allies,  the  German  people  would  be  most  painfully  dis- 
illusioned as  to  the  invincible  prowess  of  Teutonic  arms,  and 
their  morale  would  be  destroyed ;  and  if,  more  naturally,  these 
same  authorities  should  announce  specific  terms  in  keeping 
with  the  spirit  of  braggadocio  with  which  the  populace  of  Cen- 
tral Europe  had  been  inspired,  the  Allied  nations  would  then 
understand  perfectly  what  the  AlKed  governments  had  repeatedly 
declared  —  that  peace  with  militarized  victorious  Germany 
would  mean  a  Germanized  Europe  and  a  Germanized  world. 
In  the  latter  case.  Allied  morale  would  be  enormously  strength- 
ened, and  the  Allied  nations  would  put  forth  military  efforts 
such  as  they  had  never  put  forth  before. 

The  governments  of  Mittel-Europa  escaped  the  dilemma  by 
maintaining  a  terrible  silence  as  to  the  precise  terms  of  peace 
which  they  would  offer.  They  pretended  to  be  sad  and  grieved 
that  the  wicked  Allies  would  not  discuss  *' peace"  with  them, 
and  they  actually  duped  the  bulk  of  their  subjects  into  believ- 
ing that  it  was  the  Allies  alone  who  persisted  in  war  and  blood- 
shed. This  effect,  at  least,  the  Teutonic  peace  drive  of  Decem- 
ber, 1916,  had,  that  it  temporarily  consolidated  public  opinion 
in  Mittel-Europa  in  support  of  any  measures,  no  matter  how 
jdrastic  or  ruthless,  which  the  military  authorities  might  take. 

For  the  time  being,  too,  the  Teutonic  peace  drive  served  to 
reawaken  pacifist  agitation  in  Entente  countries.  In  radical 
circles  the  Allied  governments  were  criticized  for  not  making 
clear  their  own  war  aims ;  and  from  this  criticism  sprang  up  the 
curious  movement  known  as  defeatism,   a  movement  which 


200         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

reached  its  greatest  growth  in  191 7  and  which  will  require  our 
attention  in  a  subsequent  chapter.^ 

The  Teutonic  peace  drive  had  succeeded  in  19 16  scarcely 
better  than  the  year's  military  exploits.  Neither  Germany 
nor  the  Allies  had  obtained  a  decision  in  the  Great  War.  In 
negotiations  for  peace  as  well  as  in  mihtary  campaigns  the  year 
19 16  closed  with  an  apparent  stalemate  between  the  gamesters 
of  the  hostile  coalitions. 

In  certain  respects  the  failure  of  the  peace  drive  in  December, 
191 6,  marked  the  end  of  a  period  of  the  Great  War.  For  two 
years  and  a  half,  Germany  had  tried  by  force  of  arms  to  master 
the  Continent  of  Europe  —  in  vain.  For  two  years  and  a  half, 
France,  Russia,  and  Great  Britain  had  attempted  to  smash 
German  imperialism  —  in  vain.  Now,  however,  Russia  was  on 
the  brink  of  revolution,  and  the  United  States  was  on  the  point 
of  intervention.  There  would  be  something  of  a  new  alignment 
and  of  a  new  emphasis,  and  the  Great  War  would  enter  upon  a 
new  period. 

^  See  below,  pp.  287-298. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  UNITED  STATES  INTERVENES 

THE   STAKES:  ISOLATION  OR  A  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS? 

By  January,  191 7,  the  Great  War  had  been  in  progress  two 
years  and  a  half.  In  this  respect  it  was  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
international  conflicts  of  the  preceding  century.  The  war  of  1859 
between  France  and  Austria  had  lasted  less  than  three  months; 
the  war  of  1866  between  Prussia  and  Austria,  only  seven  weeks; 
the  war  of  1870-1871  between  France  and  Germany,  scarcely 
seven  months;  the  Balkans  Wars  together,  only  a  few  months; 
and  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  less  than  eighteen  months.  In 
each  of  these  conflicts,  one  side  or  the  other  had  obtained  almost 
at  the  outset  a  distinct  military  advantage  which  had  been  pressed 
to  a  speedy,  favorable  decision.  In  the  Great  War,  on  the  other 
hand,  Germany  with  all  her  preparedness  and  her  efficiency  had 
failed  to  obtain  a  military  decision,  and  the  Allies  likewise,  de- 
spite their  superior  man  power  and  economic  resources,  had  failed 
to  win  a  decisive  victory.  The  Great  War  was  protracted  and 
indecisive ;   it  was  becoming  obviously  an  endurance  test. 

The  Great  War  had  been  occasioned  by  pretty  strictly  Euro- 
pean disputes  —  disputes  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Serbia, 
and  the  long-standing  feud  between  France  and  Germany  over 
Alsace-Lorraine.  It  had  been  undertaken  by  Germany  in  the 
spirit  of  international  anarchy  —  in  the  spirit  which  would  sacri- 
fice the  small  to  the  great,  the  weak  to  the  strong,  right  to  might. 
It  represented  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  single  Great  Power  — 
Germany  —  to  impose  its  will  and  its  Kultur  by  force  upon  the 
European  state-system  and  upon  European  peoples.  If  Ger- 
many should  win  the  war,  it  would  mean  a  Germanized  Europel 
and  perhaps  a  Germanized  world  ;  nay  more,  it  would  mean  the! 
signal  exaltation  of  one  state  and  one  nation  and  thereby  the 
submergence  of  the  idea  that  the  world's  progress  depends  upon 
friendly  and  respectful  cooperation  between  independent  and 
sovereign  communities.  A  German  triumph  would  menace  the 
whole  world. 

201 


202         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

I  That  the  world  menace  of  German  victory  was  not  clearly 
/perceived  in  neutral  countries  in  191 6  should  occasion  no  surprise. 
/The  Great  War,  as  yet,  was  viewed  essentially  as  a  European 
/war.  And  to  many  neutrals  it  was  doubtful  whether  Allied  vic- 
'  tory  would  not,  almost  equally  with  German  victory,  furnish  a 
grave  menace  to  world  peace  and  world  security.  Englishmen 
and  Frenchmen  and  Italians  were  suspected  of  imperialistic  am- 
bitions, and  in  this  particular  the  Tsar's  government  was  more 
than  suspect.  So  long  as  autocratic  Russia  and  oligarchical 
Japan  were  influential  allies  of  democratic  France,  Italy,  and 
Britain,  it  was  difficult  to  interpret  the  struggle  as  one  for  liberty 
and  democracy  or  as  one  for  setting  limits  to  imperialism. 

Nor  was  there  as  yet  any  well-defined  alternative  to  the  inter- 
national anarchy  which  Germany  championed  and  which,  if  she 
were  victorious,  she  would  fasten  more  or  less  permanently  upon 
the  world.  Each  of  the  Allies  had  entered  the  war  primarily  to 
serve  its  own  ends,  and  for  long  the  chief  weakness  of  the  Allies 
had  lain  in  their  inability  to  cooperate  effectually  with  one  an- 
other and  in  their  unwillingness  to  subordinate  any  individual 
interests  to  the  good  of  their  common  cause.  Beyond  defeating 
Germany  they  appeared  to  have  no  common  cause.  And  if  they 
were  unwilling  or  unable,  in  the  stress  of  the  Great  War,  to  depart 
from  theories  and  practices  of  international  anarchy  and  adopt 
some  sort  of  enduring  covenant  among  themselves,  what  guar- 
antee would  there  be  against  an  endless  succession  of  Great  Wars  ? 
Perhaps  on  the  morrow  of  German  defeat,  Russia  would  arise  and, 
with  a  band  of  confederates,  essay  to  re-play  the  role  of  Germany. 
Or  it  might  be  Japan,  or  some  other  proud  sovereign  state.  In 
this  fashion  even  Allied  triumph  might  be  but  a  prelude  to  still 
vaster  wars  in  which  European  civilization  would  be  utterly  anni- 
hilated. History  taught  only  too  well  that  mere  alliances  were 
quite  kaleidoscopic,  and  that  a  ^'balance  of  power"  was  perpet- 
ually getting  out  of  equilibrium. 

Germany  stood  for  international  anarchy,  for  isolation  from 
the  needs  and  interests  of  other  states  and  other  peoples ;  she 
relied  upon  her  sword  to  gain  what  she  desired  of  this  world's 
glory  and  this  world's  goods.  For  what  did  the  Allies  stand? 
Simply  to  break  the  German  sword,  meanwhile  sharpening  the 
sword  of  a  Russia  or  a  Japan  ?  It  was  a  question  asked  in  that 
reflective  winter  of  1916-1917  in  France  and  Great  Britain  as  well 
as  in  neutral  countries.  And  out  of  the  searching  of  Allied  con- 
science emerged  a  new  conviction  —  a  new  purpose  —  that  the 
Great  War  must  be  ended  by  the  crushing  not  alone  of  Germany 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  203 

but  of  that  spirit  of  international  anarchy  which  Germany  in- 
carnated. Isolation  and  self-sufficiency  of  sovereign  states  had 
had  their  day ;  tried  in  the  balance,  they  had  been  found  wanting. 
As  the  Great  War  progressed,  its  stakes  were  becoming  clearer. 
On  the  one  hand  were  isolation,  international  anarchy,  and  dom- 
ination of  the  world  by  a  militaristic  and  autocratic  Great  Power ; 
on  the  other  hand  were  cooperation,  a  league  of  free  nations,  and  a 
partnership  among  democratic  and  peace-loving  governments  in 
assuming  the  responsibilities  as  well  as  the  profits  of  world  man- 
agement. The  two  most  fateful  factors  in  clarifying  the  stakes 
of  the  Great  War  early  in  191 7  were  the  Russian  revolution  and 
the  intervention  of  the  United  States.  These  two  events,  trans- 
piring simultaneously,  are  treated  in  the  present  and  next  follow- 
ing chapters. 

Six  of  the  Great  Powers  —  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia, 
France,  Great  Britain,  and  Japan  —  had  entered  the  war  in  19 14, 
and  from  such  a  supreme  test  of  strength  the  remaining  European 
Great  Power,  Italy,  could  not  long  hold  aloof.  Only  one  Great 
Power  —  the  United  States  of  America  —  preserved  neutrality 
throughout  191 5  and  191 6.  The  unique  position  of  the  United 
States  during  those  years  was  due  less  to  lack  of  interest  in  world- 
affairs  than  to  geographical  situation  and  historical  traditions. 

The  United  States  was  separated  from  the  chief  centers  of 
military  operations  by  two  or  three  thousand  miles  of  ocean. 
Because  of  her  vast  territorial  extent  on  the  American  continent 
and  the  abundance  of  her  natural  resources,  she  was  not  depend- 
ent, as  were  certain  European  countries,  upon  foreign  trade  for 
adequate  supplies  of  food,  fuel,  and  clothing.  Rendered  eco- 
nomically self-sufficing  by  her  geographical  situation,  she  adhered 
by  tradition  to  political  isolation. 

Once  upon  a  time,  almost  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  the  United 
States  had  been  in  formal  alliance  with  France,  but  this  alliance 
had  been  made  for  the  definite  purpose  of  assuring  American  in- 
dependence, and  once  the  purpose  was  achieved  the  alliance 
lapsed.  To  be  sure,  Americans  still  had  a  lively  sympathy  — 
in  the  abstract  —  for  the  land  which  had  given  them  a  Lafayette 
and  a  Rochambeau  in  their  hour  of  direst  need ;  but  there  was  an 
ail-too  prevalent  notion  in  the  United  States,  on  the  eve  of  the 
Great  War,  that  modern  Frenchmen  were  unworthy  and  de- 
generate descendants  of  illustrious  sires. 

For  more  than  a  century  Americans  had  almost  superstitiously 
heeded  the  letter  of  Washington's  admonitions  against  ^*en- 


204        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tangling  alliances,"  and  their  insistent  aloofness  from  world-re- 
sponsibilities had  fostered  among  them  a  notable  provinciality. 
It  was  natural  that  many  of  them  should  maintain  a  traditional 
dislike  and  hatred  of  England ;  George  III  meant  more  to  them 
than  George  V,  and  the  ''patriotic"  school-book  accounts  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  and  the  War  of  1812  tended  to  obscure  the 
cultural  bonds  which  united  all  the  English-speaking  peoples  and 
to  keep  Americans  in  ignorance  of  the  amazing  democratic  de- 
velopments in  England  during  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  cen- 
turies. To  the  traditional  American  opinion  of  Great  Britain, 
the  host  of  Irish  immigrants  gave  confirmation. 

Moreover,  on  the  eve  of  the  Great  War,  Germany  was  held  in 
high  esteem  in  the  United  States.  The  sudden  rise  of  imperial 
Germany,  with  her  marvelous  achievements  in  science  and  in- 
dustry, was  likened  to  the  mighty  progress  of  republican  America. 
Americans  praised  the  splendid  qualities  of  sobriety  and  thrift 
and  domesticity  which  seemed  to  characterize  their  numerous 
fellow-citizens  of  German  origin.  And  between  New  World  Amer- 
ica and  the  Germany  of  the  Old  World,  conspicuous  citizens  of 
the  United  States  —  public  officials,  college-presidents,  and  phil- 
anthropical  capitalists  —  sought  to  forge  intellectual  and  spiritual 
chains.  German  literature  was  taught  and  admired  in  the  United 
States  as  was  no  other  foreign  literature.  German  music  was 
rendered  and  appreciated  as  was  no  other.  German  scholarship 
was  prized  and  patterned  as  was  no  other. 

America's  political  isolation  served  to  confirm  popular  misap- 
prehensions about  foreign  peoples  and  at  the  same  time  to 
strengthen  popular  devotion  to  the  traditional  foreign  policies 
of  the  United  States  Government.  These  policies  may  be  stated 
as  three.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  ''Monroe  Doctrine," 
the  constant  refusal  of  the  United  States  to  interfere  in  European 
disputes  or  to  be  entangled  in  any  foreign  alliance,  her  chief  ex- 
ternal interest  being  to  keep  the  New  World  free  from  European 
aggression.  Secondly,  there  was  "arbitration,"  the  repeated 
attempts  of  the  United  States  to  substitute  a  judicial  for  a  mili- 
tary settlement  of  international  differences.  Thirdly,  there  was 
the  "freedom  of  the  seas,"  for  which  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment had  persistently  contended;  save  during  the  Civil  War, 
America  had  espoused  the  doctrine  of  the  inviolability  of  private 
property  at  sea,  a  generous  free  list,  and  a  narrow  definition  of 
contraband,  and  in  urging  the  acceptance  of  this  doctrine  by 
European  governments  she  had  been  led  into  frequent  diplomatic 
clashes  with  Great  Britain. 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  205 

Under  these  circumstances  none  of  the  belligerents  in  19 14  ex- 
pected the  United  States  actively  to  intervene  in  the  Great  War. 
And  in  America  there  was  no  considerable  movement  at  the  out- 
set in  behalf  of  intervention  on  either  side.  In  fact,  as  the  war 
progressed,  the  American  Government  and  the  bulk  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  seemed  to  think  that  if  the  United  States  adhered 
loyally  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  she  must  hold  aloof  from  the 
conflict  in  Europe,  and,  if  she  held  aloof,  she  would  be  in  a  better 
position  impartially  to  advocate  arbitration  and  freedom  of  the 
seas,  and  eventually  to  assume  leadership  in  rebuilding  a  ruined 
world  and  healing  the  wounds  of  the  nations.  America's  part 
in  the  Great  War  should  be  curative,  not  punitive. 

But  those  persons  who  thought  the  United  States,  in  the  long 
run,  could  hold  aloof  from  the  Great  War  were  quite  mistaken. 
Despite  traditional  political  isolation  and  apparent  economic  self- 
sufficiency,  the  United  States,  was  drawn  irresistibly,  willy-nilly, 
into  the  world  maelstrom.  For  the  world  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury was  very  different  from  that  world  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury in  which  American  independence  and  American  traditions, 
were  implanted.  Between  the  eighteenth  and  twentieth  cen- 
turies had  occurred  a  series  of  events  in  the  common,  workaday! 
life  of  mankind  so  amazing  and  epochal  as  to  justify  its  descrip-j 
tion  as  an  ''  Industrial  Revolution."  It  was  this  Industrial  Revo- ' 
lution  which  girdled  the  globe  with  railways,  steamship  lines, 
telegraph  and  telephone  wires,  and  drew  all  sorts  of  men  together. 
It  was  this  Industrial  Revolution  which  brought  the  chief  nations 
of  the  world  in  closer  contact  with  one  another  than  were  the! 
original  thirteen  English-speaking  American  colonies.  It  was' 
this  Industrial  Revolution  which  created  a  world-market  for 
capital,  raw  materials,  finished  products,  labor,  and  ideas,  and 
which,  by  breaking  down  the  real  barriers  of  local  isolation 
and  self-sufhciency,  laid  deep  and  broad,  if  imperceptibly,  the 
economic  foundations  for  a  political  superstructure  of  interna- 
tionalism. 

No  longer  could  there  be  exclusively  European  questions  or 
narrowly  American  problems.  The  cultures  and  the  interests  of 
America  and  Europe  were  now  so  inextricably  intertangled  that 
any  important  armed  conflict  on  either  hemisphere  would  cer- 
tainly affect  seriously  all  neutrals  the  world  over.  If  signs  of  the 
times  were  read  aright,  the  Great  War  would  be  a  war  not  only 
in  Europe  but  on  all  the  seas,  and  in  all  dominions  beyond  the 
seas,  and  passing  strange  would  that  state  be  which  could  pre- 
serve an  undisturbed  neutrality  in  such  a  cataclysm. 


2o6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

How  the  United  States  underwent  a  transformation  in  thought 
and  policy  from  aloofness  and  strict  neutrality  and  fancied  secur- 
ity, in  August,  1 9 14,  to  belligerency  and  juncture  with  the  AlHes 
in  Europe,  in  April,  191 7,  is  a  long  story,  only  a  few  of  whose 
episodes  can  be  mentioned  here.  Early  in  the  war,  the  splendid 
stand  of  the  French  armies  at  the  Marne  and  the  flocking  to 
Britain's  standard  of  Canadians  and  Australians  and  East  In- 
dians gave  America  new  ideas  about  French  character  and  British 
loyalty  and  a  notable  respect  for  the  Allied  cause,  just  as  the 
initial  atrocities  of  the  Germans  in  Belgium  and  France  opened 
American  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  much-vaunted  Teuton  had 
other  and  less  desirable  assets  than  literature,  music,  and  scholar- 
ship. Gradually  the  notion  grew  prevalent  in  America  that  im- 
perial and  militaristic  Germany  was  a  horrible  menace  to  civili- 
zation, and  that  France  and  Great  Britain  were  fighting  for  some- 
thing vastly  more  significant  than  Alsace-Lorraine  and  German 
colonies :  they  were  fighting  in  defense  of  civilization  itself.  For 
this  reason  the  majority  of  Americans  became  sympathizers  with 
the  Allies,  but  between  sympathy  and  active  participation  there 
was  still  a  wide  gulf. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  United  States  as  a  neutral  was  drawn 
into  diplomatic  conflicts  with  the  belligerents  over  rights  at  sea. 
American  pride  was  especially  wounded  by  insistent  representa- 
tions of  the  German  Government  that  the  United  States  had  no 
right  to  trade  in  munitions  with  the  Allies.  And  American  feel- 
ings were  outraged  by  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  in  May,  191 5, 
and  by  the  preposterous  German  demands  that  American  citizens 
should  surrender  their  right  of  free  travel  by  sea.  The  protracted 
diplomatic  negotiations  on  the  subject  of  ruthless  submarine  war- 
fare sorely  tried  the  patience  of  the  American  people.  And  the 
loud-mouthed  expressions  of  sympathy  for  the  German  cause  on 
the  part  of  many  German-Americans,  as  well  as  the  manifest  in- 
sincerity and  procrastination  of  the  German  diplomatists,  only 
stimulated  fresh  outbursts  of  popular  anger  in  the  United  States. 
It  was  not  until  May  4,  1916,  —  a  year  after  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  —  that  the  German  Government  promised  henceforth 
not  to  sink  merchant  vessels  without  warning  and  without  due 
provision  for  the  safety  of  passengers,  but  even  then  the  promise 
was  faltering  and  conditional. 

That  Germany's  protestations  of  friendship  for  the  United 
States  were  essentially  insincere,  was  proved  by  a  continuous 
campaign  of  German  espionage  and  outrage  in  the  New  World. 
Throughout  191 5  and  1916  diplomatic  agents  of  the  Central  Em- 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  207 

pires  organized  and  supported  a  staff  of  conspirators  against  the 
laws  of  the  United  States;  they  stirred  up  strikes  in  munition 
plants ;  they  manufactured  bombs  for  the  destruction  of  factories 
and  ships;  they  perpetrated  passport  frauds.  In  September, 
191 5,  the  United  States  had  to  request  the  recall  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  ambassador,  Dr.  Constantine  Dumba,  because  of  his 
systematic  instigation  of  labor  difficulties.  In  November,  191 5, 
the  German  ambassador.  Count  Bernstorff,  was  informed  that 
his  military  and  naval  attaches.  Captains  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed, 
were  ''no  longer  acceptable  or  personae  gratae  to  this  Govern- 
ment," and  their  recall  was  demanded  because  "of  what  this 
Government  considers  improper  activities  in  military  and  naval 
matters." 

But  Germany,  after  the  recall  of  Dumba,  Papen,  and  Boy-Ed, 
continued  her  machinations  in  America.  As  the  Committee  on 
Public  Information  of  the  United  States  Government  subse- 
quently said:  "In  this  country  official  agents  of  the  Central 
Powers  —  protected  from  criminal  prosecution  by  diplomatic 
immunity  —  conspired  against  our  internal  peace,  placed  spies 
and  agents  provocateurs  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
our  land,  and  even  in  high  positions  of  trust  in  departments  of 
our  Government.  While  expressing  a  cordial  friendship  for  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  the  Government  of  Germany  had  its 
agents  at  work  both  in  Latin  America  and  in  Japan.  They  bought 
and  subsidized  papers  and  supported  speakers  there  to  arouse 
feehngs  of  bitterness  and  distrust  against  us  in  those  friendly 
nations  in  order  to  embroil  us  in  war.  They  were  inciting  insurrec- 
tion in  Cuba,  in  Haiti,  and  in  San  Domingo ;  their  hostile  hand 
was  stretched  out  to  take  the  Danish  Islands ;  and  everywhere 
they  were  abroad  sowing  the  seeds  of  dissension,  trying  to  stir 
up  one  nation  against  another,  and  all  against  the  United  States. 
In  their  sum  these  various  operations  amounted  to  direct  assault 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine." 

There  were  persons,  of  course,  who  were  only  too  anxious  to 
utilize  the  sinister  activities  of  German  provocateurs  in  order  to 
inflame  the  Americans  against  Germany  and  to  secure  for  the 
Allies  the  active  aid  of  the  United  States.  The  Entente  Powers 
countenanced  and  encouraged  widespread  propaganda  in  their 
own  behalf ;  with  one  hand  they  cut  off  German  postal  and  tele- 
graphic communications,  while  with  the  other  they  poured  into 
America  a  flood  of  books,  pamphlets,  and  newspapers,  favorable 
to  their  own  cause.  Distinguished  Frenchmen  made  lecture- 
tours  throughout  the  country.     And  the  British  resorted  to  every 


208         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

I  known  device  of  propaganda  from  employing  secret-service  agents 
I  in  New  York  to  maintaining  at  Washington  the  great  journalist, 
'  Lord  NorthcHfTe,  with  a  host  of  assistants,  as  a  pubHcity  director. 
With  these  official  or  semi-oj6&cial  propagandists  of  the  Entente 
cooperated,  whether  for  economic  or  for  sentimental  motives,  a 
considerable  number  of  influential  Americans,  such  as  bankers 
who  made  loans  to  the  Allied  Governments  or  acted  as  purchas- 
ing agents  for  the  Allies,  manufacturers  of  munitions  and  other 
war  materiel  who  sold  their  goods  to  the  AlHes,  and  college  pro- 
fessors who  had  been  educated  in  France  or  England  or  who  from 
their  studies  and  researches  had  developed  a  special  admiration 
for  the  Uterature  and  learning  of  one  or  another  of  the  Allied 
countries.  Entente  propaganda  in  the  United  States  was  even 
more  general  than  that  of  the  Teutons ;  it  was  also  more  adroit, 
more  sympathetic,  and  more  conformable  to  American  prejudices 
and  American  wishes. 

During  191 6  two  currents  of  opinion  were  steadily  growing  in 
the  United  States.  On  the  one  hand  was  the  conviction  of  such 
men  as  Ex-President  Roosevelt  and  EKhu  Root  that  the  Great 
War  was  in  very  truth  America's  war,  that  the  Allies  were  fight- 
ing for  America's  interests,  the  greatest  of  which  was  the  main- 
tenance of  the  pubKc  right.  On  the  other  hand  was  the  desire, 
cherished  by  such  leaders  as  President  Wilson  and  Ex-President 
Taft,  that  the  Great  War  should  be  the  last  war  fought  under  the 
old  bad  conditions  of  international  isolation  and  that  America 
should  take  an  important  part  at  the  right  moment  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  League  to  Enforce  Peace.  President  Wilson,  in 
accepting  renomination  in  1916,  declared :  *'  No  nation  can  any 
longer  remain  neutral  as  against  any  willful  destruction  of  the 
peace  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  nations  of  the  world  must  unite 
in  joint  guarantee  that  whatever  is  done  to  disturb  the  whole 
world's  Hfe  must  be  tested  in  the  court  of  the  whole  world's  opin- 
ion before  it  is  attempted." 

For  a  time  in  the  autumn  of  191 6  American  interest  was  ab- 
sorbed in  the  electoral  campaign  for  the  presidency.  In  the  ranks 
of  both  the  Democratic  and  the  Repubhcan  parties  were  German 
sympathizers  and  also  strong  advocates  of  the  Allies.  Mr.  Hughes, 
the  Republican  candidate,  contented  himself  with  general  criti- 
cism of  Wilson's  policy  towards  Mexico  and  Germany,  and  took 
no  clear  stand  on  the  question  of  intervention.  The  slogan  that 
''Wilson  kept  us  out  of  the  war"  undoubtedly  drew  votes  from 
American  pacifists  and  traditionalists  for  the  Democratic  can- 
didate ;  and  President  Wilson  was  reelected  by  a  small  majority. 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  209 

Woodrow  Wilson  could  properly  interpret  his  reelection  in 
November,  19 16,  as  a  warrant  from  the  American  people  to  keep 
the  United  States  at  peace  and  to  endeavor  to  secure  international 
reform.  At  any  rate  he  speedily  urged  on  the  belligerents  the 
formation  of  a  League  of  Nations,  the  while  giving  no  indication 
that  he  would  take  sides  with  either  coalition.  On  December  18, 
1916,  he  addressed  to  each  of  the  militant  Powers  a  remarkable 
note  which  had  been  prepared  quite  independently  of  the  Teu- 
tonic Peace  Drive  then  in  full  swing. 

The  American  note  of  December  18  called  attention  to  striking 
similarities  in  the  generally  professed  war  aims  of  the  Allies  and 
of  the  Central  Powers.  ''Each  side  desires  to  make  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  weak  peoples  and  small  states  as  secure  against 
aggression  and  denial  in  the  future  as  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  the  great  and  powerful  states  now  at  war.  Each  wishes  itself 
to  be  made  secure  in  the  future,  along  with  all  other  nations  and 
peoples,  against  the  recurrence  of  wars  like  this,  and  against  op- 
pression and  selfish  interference  of  any  kind.  Each  would  be 
jealous  of  the  formation  of  any  more  rival  leagues  to  preserve  an 
uncertain  balance  of  power  against  multiplying  suspicions ;  but 
each  is  ready  to  consider  the  formation  of  a  League  of  Nations 
to  insure  peace  and  justice  throughout  the  world."  The  note 
then  went  on  to  beg  the  belligerents  to  state  their  special  war- 
aims  more  expHcitly,  and  ended  with  the  significant  words :  *'  The 
President  is  not  proposing  peace ;  he  is  not  even  offering  media- 
tion. He  is  merely  proposing  that  soundings  be  taken  in  order 
that  we  may  learn,  the  neutral  nations  with  the  beUigerents,  how 
near  the  haven  of  peace  may  be  for  which  all  mankind  longs  with 
an  intense  and  increasing  longing." 

The  replies  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  on  December 
26,  19 1 6,  were  essentially  the  same  and  equally  vague  and  un- 
satisfactory. Germany,  for  example,  suggested  ''the  speedy 
assembly,  on  neutral  ground,  of  delegates  of  the  warring  states" 
and  a  direct  exchange  of  views,  but  declared  that  plans  for  the 
prevention  of  future  wars  could  not  be  taken  up  until  the  end 
''of  the  present  conflict  of  exhaustion";  only  then  would  Ger- 
many be  ready  "to  cooperate  with  the  United  States  in  this  sub- 
lime task." 

The  Allies,  replying  to  President  Wilson  on  January  10,  191 7, 
explained  that  they  could  not  formulate  their  war-aims  in  detail 
until  the  hour  for  negotiations  arrived,  but  they  associated  them- 
selves with  the  projects  of  a  League  of  Nations  and  stated  some 
of  their  objects  quite  specifically.     "The  civilized  world  knows 


2IO         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  they  imply,  necessarily  and  first  of  all,  the  restoration  of 
Belgium,  Serbia,  and  Montenegro,  with  the  compensation  due  to 
them;  the  evacuation  of  the  invaded  territories  in  France,  in 
Russia,  in  Rumania,  with  just  reparation;  the  reorganization 
of  Europe,  guaranteed  by  a  stable  regime  and  based  at  once  on 
respect  for  nationalities  and  on  the  right  to  full  security  and  liberty 
of  economic  development  possessed  by  all  peoples,  small  and  great, 
and  at  the  same  time  upon  territorial  conventions  and  interna- 
tional settlements  such  as  to  guarantee  land  and  sea  frontiers 
against  unjustified  attack ;  the  restoration  of  provinces  formerly 
torn  from  the  Allies  by  force  and  against  the  wish  of  their  in- 
habitants; the  Hberation  of  the  Italians,  as  also  of  the  Slavs, 
Rumanians,  and  Czechoslovaks  from  foreign  domination;  the 
setting  free  of  populations  subject  to  the  bloody  tyranny  of  the 
Turks ;  and  the  turning  out  of  Europe  of  the  Ottoman  Empire 
as  decidedly  foreign  to  Western  civilization." 

The  obvious  contrast  between  the  candid  answer  of  the  Allies 
and  the  ambiguous  replies  of  the  Central  Powers  served  to  deepen 
those  currents  of  public  opinion  which  had  been  gathering  head- 
way in  America  throughout  19 16.  It  now  seemed  as  though  the 
AlHes  could  be  counted  upon  to  cooperate  with  the  United  States 
in  abolishing  international  isolation  and  in  fashioning  a  League 
of  Nations,  and,  whether  such  a  league  should  prove  permanently 
effective  or  not,  it  now  became  patent  to  a  majority  of  Americans 
that  the  Allies  were  fighting  at  least  indirectly  for  the  United 
States,  that  a  Germany  emerging  triumphant  from  the  Great 
War  could  not  long  be  restrained  from  forcing  her  Kultur  on  the 
New  World. 

UtiHzing  the  replies  to  his  note  of  December  18,  and  the  state 
of  public  opinion  throughout  the  country.  President  Wilson  ap- 
peared before  the  United  States  Senate  on  January  22,  191 7,  and 
delivered  a  remarkable  discourse.  The  peace  that  would  end 
the  war,  he  said,  must  be  followed  by  a  '^  definite  concert  of  Powers" 
which  would  ^'make  it  virtually  impossible  that  any  such  catas- 
trophe should  ever  overwhelm  us  again."  In  that  the  United 
States  must  play  a  part.  It  was  right  before  such  a  settlement 
was  reached  that  the  American  Government  should  frankly  state 
conditions  on  which  it  would  feel  justified  in  asking  the  American 
people  ''to  approve  its  formal  and  solemn  adherence  to  a  League 
of  Peace."     He  had  come  to  state  those  conditions : 

"No  peace  can  last,  or  ought  to  last,  which  does  not  (i)  recog- 
nize and  accept  the  principle  that  governments  derive  all  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  that  no  right 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  211 

anywhere  exists  to  hand  people  about  from  sovereignty  to  sover- 
eignty as  if  they  were  property.  .  .  . 

*'I  am  proposing,  as  it  were,  that  the  nations  should  with  one 
accord  adopt  the  doctrine  of  President  Monroe  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  world  :  that  no  nation  should  seek  to  extend  its  policy  over 
any  other  nation  or  people  but  that  every  people  should  be  left 
free  to  determine  its  own  policy,  its  own  way  of  development, 
unhindered,  unthreatened,  unafraid,  the  little  along  with  the 
great  and  powerful. 

^'I  am  proposing  (2)  that  all  nations  henceforth  avoid  entan- 
gling alliances  which  would  draw  them  into  competitions  of  power, 
catch  them  in  a  net  of  intrigue  and  selfish  rivalry,  and  disturb 
their  own  affairs  with  influences  intruded  from  without.  There 
is  no  entangling  alHance  in  a  concert  of  power.  When  all  unite 
to  act  in  the  same  sense  and  with  the  same  purpose,  all  act  in  the 
common  interest  and  are  free  to  Hve  their  own  Hves  under  a  com- 
mon protection. 

^'I  am  proposing  ...  (3)  that  freedom  of  the  seas  which  in 
international  conference  after  conference  representatives  of  the 
United  States  have  urged  with  the  eloquence  of  those  who 
are  the  convinced  disciples  of  liberty;  and  (4)  that  modera- 
tion of  armaments  which  make  of  armies  and  navies  a  power 
for  order  merely,  not  an  instrument  of  aggression  or  of  selfish 
violence. 

^'(5)  Mere  agreements  may  not  make  peace  secure.  It  will 
be  absolutely  necessary  that  a  force  be  created  as  a  guarantee  of 
the  permanency  of  the  settlement  so  much  greater  than  the  force 
of  any  nation  now  engaged  or  any  alliance  hitherto  formed  or 
projected  that  no  nation,  no  probable  combination  of  nations, 
could  face  or  withstand  it.  If  the  peace  presently  to  be  made  is 
to  endure,  it  must  be  a  peace  made  secure  by  the  organized  major 
force  of  mankind." 

Thus  President  Wilson  cleared  the  ground  for  the  building  of 
a  League  of  Nations  to  supplant  the  international  anarchy  which, 
according  to  him,  was  the  prime  cause  of  the  Great  War  and  the 
chief  danger  to  the  future  peace  of  the  world.  That  the  President 
still  thought  it  possible  and  desirable  for  the  United  States  to 
preserve  neutrality  was  evinced  by  his  declaration  in  the  same 
discourse  of  January  22,  that  the  peace  about  to  be  negotiated 
must  be  a  ^' peace  without  victory,"  that  is,  a  peace  not  dictated 
by  a  victor  to  a  loser,  leaving  a  heritage  of  resentment.  By  im- 
plication it  meant  that  the  AUies  must  not  seek  to  destroy  and 
dismember  Germany,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Germany 


212         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

must  abandon  any  project  of  mastering  other  European  countries 
or  of  dominating  the  world. 

Though  many  citizens  of  the  Entente  states  misunderstood 
the  phrase  *'  peace  without  victory  "  and  grumbled  at  its  utterance 
by  the  president  of  a  prosperous  neutral  which  was  supposed  to 
know  nothing  of  the  sacrifice  and  hardships  of  the  belligerents, 
the  AUied  Governments  promptly  repudiated  the  suggestion  that 
they  might  be  seeking  the  annihilation  or  enslavement  of  Ger- 
many. On  the  whole,  the  President's  proposals  met  with  an 
unexpectedly  favorable  reception  in  the  Entente  countries. 

Promptly  the  AlHes  redoubled  their  efforts  to  draw  America 
actively  into  the  war.  The  second  half  of  the  year  19 16,  as  we 
have  seen,^  had  not  been  particularly  advantageous  to  them: 
Rumania  had  collapsed;  Russia  was  faltering;  and  neither  on 
the  ItaHan  nor  on  the  Western  Front,  nor  in  Macedonia,  had  any 
brilliant  success  been  achieved.  Pacifism  and  defeatism  ^  were  ap- 
pearing in  France  and  Italy ;  war- weariness  was  growing  through- 
out all  the  Entente  countries.  If  the  energetic  assistance  of  the 
one  remaining  neutral  Great  Power  could  not  immediately  be 
secured,  AUied  morale  might  completely  disappear  and  Germany 
might  win  a  speedy  victory.  It  was  a  dark  hour  in  the  history 
of  the  Entente  and  of  the  world.  Only  the  United  States  could 
dispel  the  darkness,  and  to  this  end  English  and  French  and  Ital- 
ian propagandists  brought  all  sorts  of  pressure  to  bear  upon  the 
American  Government  and  the  American  people.  They  pressed 
the  argument  that  America's  welfare  and  safety  all  along  had 
depended  upon  their  success  and  that  now  their  success  depended 
upon  America's  direct  aid.  They  called  loudly  to  the  United 
States. 

Germany  herself  was  responsible  for  the  suddenness  and  ease 
with  which  the  United  States  heard  and  heeded  the  Allied  call. 
The  German  Government  had  failed  to  respond  frankly  and  sin- 
cerely to  the  President's  note  of  December  18,  or  to  his  address 
of  January  22.  While  it  was  endeavoring  to  create  a  pacifist 
sentiment  in  the  Entente  countries,  it  was  girding  itself  and  en- 
couraging its  own  people  to  undertake  another  campaign  for  the 
mastery  of  Europe  and  the  domination  of  the  world.  This  time 
Germany  would  not  drive  furiously  with  her  armies  against  France 
or  Russia  or  Italy  or  against  a  Serbia  or  a  Rumania ;  rather,  she 
would  hit  at  Great  Britain,  the  brain  and  sinew  of  the  hostile 
coaUtion ;  she  would  challenge  the  mistress  of  the  seas  ruthlessly 
by  a  campaign  of  unrestricted  submarine  warfare. 

*  See  above,  p.  193.  "^  See  below,  pp.  287-298. 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  213 


THE  OCCASION:    UNRESTRICTED   SUBMARINE  WARFARE 

It  has  already  been  explained  that  the  chief  weapon  of  any 
German  counter-offensive  against  Great  Britain  was  the  sub- 
marine, but  that  this  weapon  would  be  ineffectual  unless  its  use 
were  unrestricted.  Unrestricted  use  of  the  submarine,  though 
absolutely  at  variance  with  recognized  rules  of  international  con- 
duct, had  always  been  advocated  by  Tirpitz,  Reventlow,  and  other 
Pan- Germans  who  viewed  England  as  the  main  stumbKng-block 
to  Teutonic  victory ;  it  had  actually  been  attempted  in  the  spring 
of  191 5  and  had  been  abandoned  definitely  in  May,  191 6,  only  be- 
cause of  the  threatening  expostulations  of  the  United  States  and 
other  neutral  Powers  and  because  of  a  conviction  in  the  minds  of 
more  moderate  German  statesmen,  such  as  the  Chancellor  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg,  that  there  were  other  and  less  perilous  means  of 
bringing  Britain  to  terms. 

From  May,  1916,  to  January,  191 7,  Bethmann-HoUweg,  hold- 
ing the  German  submarines  in  leading  strings,  pursued  in  turn 
two  poHcies  which  were  calculated  to  disrupt  the  Entente  and 
bring  a  German  peace.  The  one  was  the  smashing  of  the  Allied 
fronts  on  the  continent  of  Europe  —  the  military  drives  against 
Verdun,  against  Vicenza,  and  into  Rumania.  The  other  was  the 
diplomatic  peace  drive,  culminating  in  the  Teutonic  peace-note 
of  December,  191 6.  But  both  policies  miscarried.  The  Teutons 
failed  to  obtain  a  miHtary  decision ;  they  failed  likewise  to  make 
the  Allies  sue  for  peace.  And  meanwhile  the  Allies  were  tighten- 
ing their  economic  strangle-hold  on  Mittel-Europa. 

Tirpitz  had  been  forced  out  of  the  German  naval  office  in  the 
spring  of  191 6,  but  from  his  retirement  he  had  never  ceased  to 
berate  Bethmann-Hollweg  for  what  he  deemed  a  cowardly  sur- 
render of  the  best  German  weapons  to  the  susceptibilities  of 
"mercenary"  America;  and  as  Bethmann-Hollweg's  alternative 
policies  went  wrong,  the  popular  following  of  Tirpitz  in  Germany 
grew  noisier  and  more  numerous.  Eventually  there  was  a  veri- 
table clamor  for  the  resumption  of  unrestricted  submarine  war- 
fare, cost  what  it  might.  Even  the  more  moderate  elements  in 
German  public  life  were  won  over,  by  the  failure  of  their  peace- 
drive,  to  espouse  a  campaign  of  ruthlessness.  Germany  had 
already  risked  much  in  pursuit  of  world  dominion;  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  was  now  willing  to  risk  everything. 

On  January  31,  191 7,  the  German  Government  officially  noti- 
fied the  United  States  that  inasmuch  as  the  AlHes  had  rejected 
Germany's  peace  offer,  and  inasmuch  as  the  Entente  Powers,  led 


214        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


by  England,  had  sought  for  two  and  a  half  years  to  starve  Ger- 
many into  submission,  *'  a  new  situation  has  thus  been  created 
which  forces  Germany  to  new  decisions,"  and  that  therefore  Ger- 
many would  exercise  the  freedom  of  action  which  she  reserved  to 
herself  in  her  note  of  May  4,  1916.  Accordingly,  announcement 
was  made  that  from  February  i,  191 7,  all  sea  traffic  within  cer- 
tain zones  adjoining  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy,  and  in  the 
eastern  Mediterranean,  would,  "without  further  notice,  be  pre- 
vented by  all  weapons."     This  meant  that  German  submarines 


German  "War  Zone"  of  February  i,  191 7 

proposed  to  sink  at  sight  within  these  areas  all  vessels  whether 
neutral  or  belHgerent. 

The  German  note  of  January  31,  191 7,  reopened  the  whole  sub- 
marine question  not  only,  but  further  outraged  American  pride 
(and,  it  must  be  said,  touched  at  an  ironical  point  the  American 
sense  of  humor)  by  laying  down  hard  and  fast  rules  for  United 
States  shipping.  ''Sailing  of  regular  American  passenger  steam- 
ships," stated  a  condescending  memorandum  which  accompanied 
the  German  note,  *'may  continue  undisturbed  after  February  i, 
1917,  if —  (a)  the  port  of  destination  is  Falmouth;  (b)  sailing 
to,  or  coming  from,  that  port,  course  is  taken  via  the  Scilly  Islands 


THE  UNITED  STATES  INTERVENES  215 

and  a  point  50°  N.,  20°  W. ;  (c)  the  steamships  are  marked  in 
the  following  way,  which  must  not  be  allowed  to  other  vessels  in 
American  ports  —  on  ship's  hull  and  superstructure  three  ver- 
tical stripes,  one  meter  wide  each,  to  be  painted  alternately  white 
and  red;  each  mast  should  show  a  large  flag  checkered  white 
and  red,  and  the  stern  the  American  national  flag ;  care  should 
be  taken  that,  during  dark,  national  flag  and  painted  marks  are 
easily  recognizable  from  a  distance,  and  that  the  boats  are  well 
lighted  throughout;  (d)  one  steamship  a  week  sails  in  each  di- 
rection, with  arrival  at  Falmouth  on  Sunday  and  departure  from 
Falmouth  on  Wednesday;  (e)  the  United  States  Government 
guarantees  that  no  contraband  (according  to  German  contra- 
band Hst)  is  carried  by  those  steamships." 

Every  right  to  the  freedom  of  the  seas  for  which  the  United 
States  had  ever  contended  was  violated  by  the  brusque  German 
declaration  of  January  31,  and  all  those  emotions  of  dislike,  fear, 
and  hatred  of  Germany,  which  had  been  steadily  heightened  in 
the  United  States  by  adroit  AlUed  propaganda,  were  instanta- 
neously welded  into  resolute  hostility.  On  February  3,  the  Ger- 
man ambassador  at  Washington,  Count  Bernstorff ,  was  handed 
his  passports,  and  the  American  ambassador  at  Berlin,  James 
Gerard,  was  summoned  home.  On  the  same  day  President  Wil- 
son told  Congress  that  he  still  could  not  believe  the  German 
Government  meant  ^'  to  do  in  fact  what  they  have  warned  us  they 
feel  at  liberty  to  do,"  and  that  only  ''actual  overt  acts"  would 
convince  him  of  their  hostile  purpose.  But  he  ended  with  the 
solemn  announcement  that  if  American  ships  were  sunk  and 
American  lives  were  lost,  he  would  come  again  to  Congress  and 
ask  for  power  to  take  the  necessary  steps  for  the  protection  of 
American  rights. 

The  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  Germany  did  not  necessarily  mean  war,  though  it  pointed  in 
that  direction.  Undoubtedly  a  majority  of  the  American  people 
still  cherished  the  idea  expressed  by  the  President  that  Germany 
would  not  venture  to  put  her  threats  into  effect.  Nevertheless 
the  mere  threats  of  Germany  sufficed  to  deter  American  ships 
from  sailing  for  Europe,  with  the  result  that  powerful  economic 
interests  in  America  increased  the  clamor  against  Germany,  the 
excitement  being  particularly  acute  in  New  England  and  in  the 
Middle  Atlantic  States. 

On  February  26,  191 7,  President  Wilson  again  addressed  Con- 
gress, pointing  out  that  Germany  had  placed  a  practical  embargo 
on  American  shipping,  and  urging  that  the  United  States  resort 


2i6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

to  ''armed  neutrality,"  a  measure  just  short  of  war.  On  March  i 
the  House  of  Representatives  voted  ''armed  neutraUty"  by  403 
to  13,  but  in  the  Senate  the  measure  was  defeated  by  a  "  fiHbuster  " 
of  a  handful  of  "willful  men,"  who  prolonged  the  debate  until 
the  expiration  of  the  congressional  session,  on  March  4. 

In  the  meantime,  on  February  28,  the  Associated  Press  pub- 
Hshed  an  order  which  had  been  issued  on  January  16  by  Herr 
Zimmermann,  German  Under-Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs,  to 
the  German  minister  in  Mexico,  and  which  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  United  States  Government.  The  "Zimmermann 
Note"  instructed  the  German  minister  to  form  an  alliance  with 
Mexico  in  the  event  of  war  between  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  and  to  offer  as  a  bribe  the  states  of  Texas,  New  Mexico, 
and  Arizona ;  it  also  suggested  that  efforts  might  be  made  to 
seduce  Japan  from  the  Allies  and  bring  her  into  partnership  with 
Mexico  and  Germany.  From  the  date  of  the  note  —  January 
16  —  it  was  obvious  that  the  German  Government  had  been 
planning  the  resumption  of  ruthless  submarine  warfare  at  the 
very  time  when  it  was  pretending  to  be  most  friendly  to  the  United 
States,  and  from  the  contents  it  was  apparent  that  Germany 
would  go  to  any  length  in  opposing  American  rights.  The  result 
of  the  disclosure  was  increased  resentment  against  Germany, 
especially  in  the  southwestern  states  and  on  the  Pacific  coast. 
The  whole  United  States  was  being  rapidly  galvanized  into  war- 
activity. 

Woodrow  Wilson,  in  his  inaugural  address,  on  March  5,  said: 
"We  stand  firm  in  armed  neutrality,  since  it  seems  that  in  no 
other  way  we  can  demonstrate  what  it  is  we  insist  upon  and  can- 
not forego.  We  may  be  drawn  on  by  circumstances,  not  by  our 
own  purpose  or  desire,  to  a  more  active  assertion  of  our  rights  as 
we  see  them  and  a  more  immediate  association  with  the  great 
struggle  itself."  One  week  later  he  issued  formal  orders  to  arm 
American  merchant  vessels  against  submarines.  And  within 
another  week  the  "actual  overt  acts"  of  which  he  had  warned 
in  his  speech  before  Congress  on  February  3  were  committed. 
On  March  16-17  three  homeward-bound  ships, ^  —  American- 
built,  American-owned,  and  American-manned,  —  were  sunk  by 
German  submarines.  German  defiance  of  the  United  States  was 
now  flagrant  and  unmistakable. 

Not  only  was  the  case  against  Germany  perfectly  plain,  but 
an  event  had  just  occurred  which  now  made  it  easier  for  the 
United  States  to  intervene  in  the  Great  War  on  the  side  of  the 
1  The  Vigilancia,  the  City  of  Memphis,  and  the  Illinois. 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  217 

Allies.  It  was  in  March,  191 7,  that  the  Russian  Revolution 
broke  out ;  the  Tsar  abdicated ;  a  provisional  democratic  govern- 
ment was  proclaimed;  and  on  March  21,  the  United  States  led 
all  the  nations  of  the  world  in  according  recognition  to  the  new 
regime  at  Petrograd.  The  destruction  of  autocracy  in  Russia 
signified  that  the  lines  were  now  drawn  quite  distinctly  between 
isolated,  militaristic,  oligarchical  Mittel-Europa,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  league  of  peace-loving,  democratic  nations,  on  the  other. 
So  long  as  Russia  retained  a  reactionary  absolutism,  the  United 
States  might  well  adhere  to  a  policy  of  ''armed  neutrahty,"  but 
as  soon  as  Russia  patterned  her  political  institutions  after  those 
of  democratic  France,  Britain,  and  Italy,  then  the  United  States 
saw  the  way  clear  to  a  juncture  with  the  Allies  and  to  a  fight  to 
the  finish  with  Germany.  The  Great  War  would  no  longer  be 
in  any  respect  a  conflict  between  dynasties;  it  would  be  ''the 
eternal  war  of  Uberty  and  despotism." 

On  April  2,  191 7,  President  Wilson  came  before  Congress  and 
asked  for  a  declaration  of  war  against  Germany.  His  address 
on  that  occasion,  one  of  the  greatest  of  America's  famous  docu- 
ments, was  in  part  as  follows:  "With  a  profound  sense  of  the 
solemn  and  even  tragical  character  of  the  step  I  am  taking  and 
of  the  grave  responsibilities  which  it  involves,  but  in  unhesitating 
obedience  to  what  I  deem  my  constitutional  duty,  I  advise  that 
the  Congress  declare  the  recent  course  of  the  Imperial  German 
Government  to  be  in  fact  nothing  less  than  war  against  the  Gov- 
ernment and  people  of  the  United  States ;  that  it  formally  accept 
the  status  of  belligerent  which  has  thus  been  thrust  upon  it ;  and 
that  it  take  immediate  steps  not  only  to  put  the  country  in  a  more 
thorough  state  of  defense  but  also  to  exert  aU  its  power  and  em- 
ploy all  its  resources  to  bring  the  Government  of  the  German 
Empire  to  terms  and  end  the  war.  ...  It  will  involve  the  ut- 
most practicable  cooperation  in  counsel  and  action  with  the  Gov- 
ernments now  at  war  with  Germany.  .  .  . 

"A  steadfast  concert  of  peace  can  never  be  maintained  except 
by  a  partnership  of  democratic  nations.  No  autocratic  Govern- 
ment could  be  trusted  to  keep  faith  within  it  or  to  observe  its 
covenants.  It  must  be  a  league  of  honor,  a  partnersWp  of  opin- 
ion ....  Only  free  peoples  can  hold  their  purpose  and  their 
honor  steady  to  a  common  end  and  prefer  the  interests  of  man- 
kind to  any  narrow  interest  of  their  own.  .  .  . 

"The  world  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy.  Its  peace  must 
be  planted  upon  the  tested  foundations  of  poHtical  liberty.  We 
have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.     We  desire  no  conquest,  no  doroin- 


2i8         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

ion.  We  seek  no  indemnities  for  ourselves,  no  material  com- 
pensation for  the  sacrifices  we  shall  freely  make.  We  are  but 
one  of  the  champions  of  the  rights  of  mankind.  We  shall  be 
satisfied  when  those  rights  have  been  made  as  secure  as  the  faith 
and  the  freedom  of  nations  can  make  them.  .  .  . 

^'It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  lead  this  great,  peaceful  people  into 
war,  into  the  most  terrible  and  disastrous  of  all  wars,  civilization 
itself  seeming  to  be  in  the  balance.  But  the  right  is  more  pre- 
cious than  peace,  and  we  shall  fight  for  the  things  which  we  have 
always  carried  nearest  our  hearts  —  for  democracy,  for  the  right 
of  those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice  in  their  own 
Governments,  for  the  rights  and  Hberties  of  small  nations,  for  a 
universal  dominion  of  right  by  such  a  concert  of  free  peoples  as 
shall  bring  peace  and  safety  to  all  nations  and  make  the  world 
itself  at  last  free. 

^'To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our  lives  and  our  fortunes, 
everything  that  we  are  and  everything  that  we  have,  with  the 
pride  of  those  who  know  that  the  day  has  come  when  America 
is  privileged  to  spend  her  blood  and  her  might  for  the  principles 
that  gave  her  birth  and  happiness  and  the  peace  which  she  has 
treasured.     God  helping  her,  she  can  do  no  other." 

On  April  4,  the  Senate  adopted  a  declaration  of  war  by  82  votes 
to  6,  and  on  the  next  day  the  House,  by  373  votes  to  50.  And 
on  April  6,  191 7,  the  President  issued  a  proclamation  declaring 
that  "si  state  of  war  exists  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Imperial  German  Government."  Two  days  later  the  United 
States  broke  off  diplomatic  relations  with  Austria-Hungary,  al- 
though a  declaration  of  war  against  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  de- 
layed until  December  7. 

Thus  by  April,  191 7,  the  resumption  of  unrestricted  submarine 
warfare  by  Germany  had  brought, the  United  States,  the  last  of 
the  world's  Great  Powers,  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies. 
Furthermore,  German  ruthlessness  now  stirred  up  a  wave  of  pro- 
Ally  sentiment  among  the  remaining  neutrals,  and  protests  against 
submarine  warfare  and  barred  zones  were  speedily  filed  at  Berlin 
by  Spain,  Holland,  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark,  China,  and  the 
republics  of  Latin  America.  Within  a  week  of  America's  declara- 
tion of  war,  Brazil  and  Bolivia  severed  diplomatic  relations  with 
Germany,  and  Cuba  and  Panama  formally  joined  the  Allies. 

The  intervention  of  the  United  States  was  a  godsend  to  the 
Entente,  for  at  the  time,  as  subsequently  was  generally  admitted, 
the  Entente  was  on  its  ''last  legs."  Russia  was  soon  to  quit  the 
war  altogether,  and  France  and  Italy  were  alike  suffering  from 


THE  UNITED   STATES   INTERVENES  219 

bad  cases  of  '' nerves."  Now,  however,  the  United  States  could 
put  at  the  disposal  of  the  Entente  her  rich  metals,  her  copious 
foodstuffs,  her  numerous  shipyards,  her  powerful  fleet,  her  vast 
man  power,  and,  most  significant  of  all,  her  fresh  enthusiasm  and 
her  unselfish  ideaHsm.  The  character  of  the  Great  War  in  popu- 
lar imagination  was  changed  for  the  better,  and  the  chances  of 
victory  for  the  public  right  were  enormously  increased.  Ger- 
many, already  inferior  to  the  Allies  in  natural  resources  and  stay- 
ing power,  would  soon  be  rendered  hopelessly  inferior.  For  this 
denouement  Germany  had  only  her  own  ruthlessness  to  blame. 

THE   PROBLEM:    PREPAREDNESS 

Germany  had  staked  everything  on  the  success  of  her  subma- 
rine warfare,  and  the  intervention  of  the  United  States  did  not 
swerve  her  from  her  purpose.  She  realized  that  the  United  States 
was  ill  prepared  for  immediate  active  participation  in  the  struggle 
in  Europe.  No  matter  how  energetic  the  American  Government 
might  be,  it  would  certainly  take  the  whole  year  191 7  for  the 
United  States  to  raise,  train,  equip,  and  transport  to  Europe  an 
army  large  enough  to  have  any  appreciable  effect  upon  the  for- 
tunes of  the  war.  Food,  munitions,  and  shipping,  in  addition 
to  men,  would  have  to  be  supplied  in  enormous  quantities  not 
only  for  an  American  Expeditionary  Force  but  for  the  Allies  also, 
and  as  yet  America  was  not  ready  to  fulfill  these  obhgations.  It 
would  be  the  spring  of  1 918,  at  the  earhest,  before  Germany  need 
reckon  seriously  with  the  United  States. 

In  the  meantime  Germany  would  vigorously  prosecute  her 
submarine  warfare  against  Great  Britain.  Ruthlessly  would  she 
seek  to  destroy  every  merchant  vessel  endeavoring  to  enter  or 
leave  a  British  port,  and  in  this  way  she  would  destroy  Allied 
shipping,  put  a  practical  embargo  on  British  industry  and  trade, 
deprive  the  Allied  armies  of  munitions  and  supplies,  and  starve 
out  the  civilian  population  of  the  United  Kingdom.  If  all  went 
well  for  the  Germans,  Great  Britain  would  be  brought  to  terms; 
and  once  Great  Britain  submitted,  France  and  Italy  and  Russia 
would  have  to  sue  for  peace.  And  with  Allied  shipping  destroyed 
and  with  the  Allies  submitting  to  the  inevitable,  there  would  be 
neither  means  nor  purpose  of  transporting  an  American  Expedi- 
tionary Force  to  Europe.  American  intervention,  Germany 
thought,  could  not  be  effective  before  the  spring  of  191 8,  and  then 
it  would  be  too  late.  Perhaps  Germany  was  again  over-opti- 
mistic, but  at  any  rate  the  Allies  themselves  were  worried.     They 


220        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

trembled  when  they  tried  to  face  the  question.  Could  the  United 
States  complete  preparedness  before  Germany  had  succeeded  in 
her  unrestricted  submarine  warfare? 

No  sooner  had  the  United  States  declared  war  against  Germany 
than  special  missions  visited  America  from  England  and  France 
—  the  British  mission  headed  by  Foreign  Secretary  Balfour,  and 
the  French  by  Ex-Premier  Viviani  and  Marshal  Joffre.  These 
missions  explained  the  dire  situation  confronting  the  Allies  and 
the  urgent  need  for  the  United  States  not  only  to  dispatch  sup- 
plies of  all  sorts  to  their  countries  and  to  assist  in  averting  the 
submarine  danger  but  to  rush  large  armies  to  France,  if  not  im- 
mediately to  engage  in  the  actual  fighting,  at  least  to  reassure  the 
Allied  troops  that  the  United  States  was  really  in  the  war  and 
thus  to  strengthen  their  morale.  The  response  was  sympathetic 
and  enthusiastic. 

It  is  perhaps  regrettable  that  the  American  Government  did 
not  take  advantage  of  the  exigencies  of  the  AlHes  and  the  visit 
of  the  foreign  missions  to  make  full  participation  of  the  United 
States  in  the  war  conditional  upon  the  formal  repudiation  by  the 
Entente  of  all  existing  ^'secret  treaties."  If  this  had  been  done, 
most  probably  the  ''secret  treaties"  would  have  been  thrown 
overboard,  the  Great  War  in  its  subsequent  phases  would  have 
been  waged  more  distinctly  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  that  im- 
pelled American  intervention,  and  certain  very  troublesome  prob- 
lems which  later  confronted  the  Peace  Congress  would  never  have 
arisen  or  would  have  been  solved  more  equitably.  As  it  was, 
however,  the  visiting  missions  carefully  concealed  from  President 
Wilson  the  existence  of  numerous  secret  international  engage- 
ments by  which  they  were  bound,  notably  the  pledges  made  Japan 
in  February,  191 7,  in  respect  of  the  German  rights  in  the  Chinese 
province  of  Shantung  and  the  German  Pacific  islands  north  of 
the  equator.  That  the  United  States  made  no  such  conditions 
or  reservations  was  a  tribute  to  American  unselfishness  and  like- 
wise to  the  naive  faith  of  the  American  Government  that  all  other 
Powers  arrayed  against  Germany  were  equally  unselfish.  At  any 
rate  America  was  resolved  to  show  the  faith  that  was  in  her  not 
alone  by  words  but  also  by  deeds. 

It  was  none  too  soon.  Even  before  the  formal  resumption  of 
unrestricted  submarine  warfare  on  February  i,  191 7,  Germany 
had  made  noteworthy  progress  in  destroying  AlHed  shipping  and 
in  hampering  AlHed  commerce.  Since  August,  1914,  every  month 
had  witnessed  the  sinking  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  tons  of 
belHgerent  and  neutral  merchant  vessels.     In  19 14  nearly  700,000 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  221 

tons  of  British  and  Allied  and  neutral  shipping  had  been  destroyed ; 
in  1915  the  amount  increased  to  1,700,000  tons;  and  in  1916  it 
soared  to  2,800,000  tons.  Apparently,  as  time  went  on,  the  Ger- 
man submarines  were  becoming  more  numerous,  more  daring, 
and  more  experienced.  By  February,  191 7,  submarine  warfare 
had  passed  its  trial  stage  and  was  to  be  put  to  the  supreme  test. 
And  just  as  the  German  navy  yards  completed  a  host  of  new  sub- 
marines and  German  factories  equipped  them  with  powerful  tor- 
pedoes for  their  deadly  work,  the  German  Government  laid  aside 
all  pretense  of  observing  international  law  in  their  use  and  pro- 
claimed the  ruthless  orders  of  February  i. 

The  German  campaign  of  sea-ruthlessness  started  off  with 
spirit  and  dash.  From  January  to  June,  191 7,  German  sub- 
marines sank  2,275,000  tons  of  British  shipping  and  1,580,000 
tons  of  alHed  and  neutral  shipping,  —  an  aggregate  loss  to  the 
Entente  of  nearly  four  milHon  tons  in  six  months.  If  this  huge 
total  could  be  doubled  in  the  second  half  of  191 7,  German  hopes 
and  Allied  fears  might  be  justified. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  spirit  and  dash  which  char- 
acterized the  submarine  campaign  of  Germany  in  the  first  half 
of  191 7  were  not  sustained  in  the  second  half  of  the  year,  for  the 
Allies  were  finding  means  of  lessening  the  menace.  Merchant 
vessels  began  to  sail  under  convoy,  guarded  above  by  dirigible 
balloons  and  hydroplanes,  and  on  the  surface  by  a  fleet  of  patrol 
boats.  Close  watch  was  kept  of  the  movements  of  submarines, 
either  by  means  of  lookouts  on  patrol  boats  or  by  means  of  wire- 
less operators  who  detected  messages  passing  between  the  sub- 
marines and  the  German  naval  bases.  The  camouflaging  of 
Allied  ships,  moreover,  proved  a  useful  deception;  "the  war 
brought  no  stranger  spectacle  than  that  of  a  convoy  of  steamships 
plowing  along  through  the  middle  of  the  ocean  streaked  and  be- 
spotted  indiscriminately  with  every  color  of  the  rainbow  in  a  way 
more  bizarre  than  the  wildest  dreams  of  a  sailor's  first  night  ashore. ' ' 
Gradually,  Allied  naval  commanders  were  enabled  to  trap  and 
destroy,  or  capture,  German  submarines;  and  the  German  au- 
thorities found  it  increasingly  difficult  to  repair  and  replenish 
their  submarines  and  to  make  their  sailors  undertake  joyfully 
the  new  hazards  of  Hfe  in  a  periscope.  Though  the  losses  to 
AlHed  shipping  continued  heavy  throughout  191 7  and  far  into 
191 8,  the  turn  of  the  tide  was  reached  in  the  midsummer  of  191 7. 
In  the  second  half  of  191 7  the  destruction  of  Allied  and  neutral 
shipping  amounted  in  the  aggregate  to  two  and  three-fourths 
milHon  tons,  as  against  nearly  four  millions  in  the  first  half  of  the 


222         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

year.  It  was  obvious  that  Germany  had  miscalculated  the  suc- 
cess of  unrestricted  submarine  warfare  and  that  Great  Britain 
would  not  be  brought  to  terms  by  the  spring  of  1918. 

It  became  obvious,  too,  that  Germany  had  miscalculated  the 
time  required  for  the  United  States  to  intervene  actively  in  the 
war.  For  the  United  States,  after  declaring  war  on  April  6,  191 7, 
lost  no  time  in  collecting  vast  sums  of  money,  in  gathering  and 
training  a  large  army,  and  in  mobilizing  industries  and  resources. 
Immediately  German  ships  in  American  harbors  were  seized,  and 
the  navy  and  the  small  standing  army  were  mobilized.  A  Coun- 
cil of  National  Defense  was  formed,  comprising  the  secretaries 
of  war,  navy,  interior,  agriculture,  commerce,  and  labor,  with  an 
advisory  commission  of  seven  men  drawn  from  civil  life,  and 
with  a  host  of  affihated  local  boards  and  committees  throughout 
the  country  to  assist  in  coordinating  America's  war  efforts.  To 
arouse  an  intelligent  popular  enthusiasm  for  the  war,  a  Committee 
on  Public  Information  was  created  under  the  chairmanship  of 
George  Creel.  There  was  some  natural  and  inevitable  *'mud- 
dUng"  in  transforming  America  suddenly  from  a  peace  footing 
to  a  war  basis,  but,  considering  the  manifold  difficulties  and  handi- 
caps, the  task  as  a  whole  was  achieved  with  surprising  efficiency 
and  dispatch. 

A  Selective  Service  Act,  passed  in  May,  authorized  the  Presi- 
dent to  increase  the  regular  army,  by  voluntary  enlistment,  to 
287,000  men,  the  maximum  strength  provided  by  existing  law; 
to  draft  into  service  all  members  of  the  National  Guard ;  and  to 
raise  by  selective  draft  an  additional  force  of  500,000  men,  and 
another  500,000  at  his  discretion.  The  age  limits  for  drafted 
men  were  twenty-one  and  thirty  years,  and  all  male  persons  be- 
tween these  ages  were  required  to  register  ''in  accordance  with 
regulations  to  be  prescribed  by  the  President."  On  June  5, 
'' registration  day,"  some  nine  and  one-half  million  young  Ameri- 
cans enrolled,  and  the  drawing  of  the  625,000  men  to  form  the 
first  selective  army  took  place  at  Washington  on  July  15.  In 
July  the  National  Guard  was  mobilized,  and  in  September  the 
mobilization  of  the  new  national  army  began. 

Meanwhile  Congress  was  enacting  a  series  of  important  war 
measures :  two  liberty  loan  acts  (April  and  September) ;  an  es- 
pionage act,  in  June ;  an  aviation  act,  in  July ;  food  control  and 
shipping  acts,  in  August ;  and  in  September,  a  revenue  act  im- 
posing war  taxes  on  income  and  excess  profits,  a  trading- with- 
the-enemy  act,  and  a  soldiers'  and  sailors'  insurance  act.  During 
the  congressional  session  which  closed  in  October,  191 7,  appro- 


THE  UNITED   STATES  INTERVENES  223 

priations  were  made  totaling  nearly  nineteen  billion  dollars,  of 
which  seven  bilHons  were  to  cover  loans  to  the  Allies.  In  July 
Mr.  Herbert  Hoover  became  ''food  dictator,"  and  in  August  Mr. 
Garfield  was  appointed  ''fuel  administrator."  In  December  the 
Government  took  over  the  management  and  operation  of  the 
railways.  Every  possible  step  was  taken  to  expedite  the  pro- 
duction of  munitions  and  other  war  supplies,  including  foodstuffs, 
and  to  transport  all  these  commodities  to  American  seaports  on 
the  Atlantic  coast  and  thence  to  Europe  for  the  rehef  alike  of  the 
armed  forces  and  of  the  civilian  population,  of  the  nations  now 
associated  with  the  United  States  in  the  Great  War.  To  place 
American  grain,  meat,  munitions,  and  money  so  promptly  and  so 
effectively  at  the  disposal  of  the  Allies  was  of  itself  no  mean  con- 
tribution of  the  United  States  to  the  eventual  defeat  of  Germany. 

But  the  United  States  Government  was  resolved  to  go  much 
farther  and  to  put  American  troops  in  front-line  trenches  along- 
side those  Allied  troops  who  for  two  years  and  a  half  had  borne 
the  heat  and  burden  of  the  greatest  war  in  history.  On  June  13, 
General  John  J.  Pershing,  who  had  been  designated  to  command 
the  projected  American  Expeditionary  Force  abroad,  arrived  in 
Paris,  and  the  first  contingent  of  American  troops  reached  France 
on  June  25.  The  first  American  shots  from  European  trenches 
were  fired  on  October  27,  and  the  first  trench  fighting  of  Ameri- 
cans occurred  a  week  later.  By  December,  1917,  about  250,000 
American  troops  had  been  safely  landed  in  France ;  and  towards 
the  end  of  January,  1918,  the  War  Department  at  Washington 
let  it  be  known  that  United  States  soldiers  were  occupying  front- 
line trenches  "in  a  certain  sector." 

Against  American  preparations  the  German  submarine  war- 
fare made  little  headway.  It  is  true  that  during  the  first  year 
of  unrestricted  submarine  warfare,  ending  January  31,  1918, 
some  sixty-nine  American  vessels,  representing  a  gross  tonnage 
of  170,000,  were  sunk  by  submarines,  mines,  or  raiders.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  should  be  remembered  that  enemy  merchant  ships 
were  seized  by  the  United  States  to  the  number  of  107,  with  an 
aggregate  tonnage  of  nearly  700,000,  and  that  many  of  these 
former  German  and  Austrian  liners  were  promptly  repaired  and 
used  to  carry  American  troops  and  supplies  to  France.  Besides, 
the  United  States  Government  inaugurated  a  shipbuilding  pro- 
gram of  huge  dimensions,  so  that  by  the  first  anniversary  of 
America's  participation  in  the  war  the  United  States  had  put  in 
commission  1275  vessels  of  every  sort  of  service  —  mine-sweep- 
ing, mine-laying,  transport,  patrol,  and  submarine-chasing.     By 


224         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  same  date  the  personnel  of  the  American  navy  had  grown  from 
its  original  number  of  4800  officers  and  102,000  men  to  20,600 
officers  and  330,000  men,  and  the  navy  itself  with  great  speed  and 
small  loss  was  conducting  the  most  amazing  ferrying  business  on 
record. 

Before  the  spring  of  191 8  had  rolled  around,  the  problem  of 
American  preparedness  was  solved,  and  it  was  solved  in  manner 
wholly  disconcerting  to  the  Teutons.  At  the  beginning  of  191 7 
Germany  had,  with  mad  imprecations,  unloosed  the  ruthless  sub- 
marines in  order  to  bring  Great  Britain  to  terms.  At  the  close 
of  191 7,  despite  the  submarines  and  the  fierce  invectives  of  Ger- 
many, Great  Britain  was  still  resolutely  hostile.  Nay,  more, 
at  the  close  of  191 7,  because  of  those  same  submarines  and  in- 
vectives, the  United  States  was  an  active  associate  of  the  Entente, 
pouring  out  to  Britain  and  France  and  Italy  vast  streams  of  food 
and  minerals  and  treasures  and,  most  startHng  of  all,  her  own 
man  power.  Verily  it  was  a  new  stage  of  the  Great  War  which 
the  intervention  of  the  United  States  marked,  and  one  ominous 
to  Germany's  vaulting  ambitions  and  likewise  to  any  perpetu- 
ation of  international  anarchy. 


CHAPTER  XI 
RUSSIA  REVOLTS   AND   MAKES    "PEACE" 

DESTRUCTION  OF   RUSSIAN  AUTOCRACY:    THE   MARCH 
(1917)    REVOLUTION 

Autocracy  of  the  Russian  variety  proved  itself  absolutely 
unfit  to  meet  the  supreme  test  of  the  Great  War.  Such  was 
its  corruption  and  inefficiency  that  rather  early  in  the  struggle 
Russia  had  lost  to  the  foreign  foe  more  men  and  more  territory 
than  any  other  Great  Power.  And  such  was  the  obtuseness  of 
the  Russian  autocracy  that  it  would  learn  no  lesson  from  military 
defeat  and  would  brook  no  honest  criticism  of  its  own  conduct. 
In  fact,  as  time  went  on,  the  court  and  the  bureaucracy  appeared 
to  think  less  and  less  of  how  to  defeat  Germany  and  more  and 
more  of  how  to  ward  off  domestic  revolution. 

Throughout  the  winter  of  1916-1917  popular  disaffection 
overspread  Russia.  Army  officers  complained  of  the  lack  of 
governmental  energy  in  prosecuting  the  war.  The  middle  classes 
complained  of  absurd  governmental  restrictions  on  trade  and 
industry.  Landlords  complained  of  silly  governmental  restric- 
tions on  the  export  of  grain  from  one  district  to  another.  Peasants 
groaned  under  an  intolerable  system  of  economic  and  political 
abuses.  Workingmen  in  the  towns  suffered  from  a  shortage 
of  food  and  a  general  paralysis  of  business.  Against  the  bureau- 
cracy were  arrayed  all  popular  bodies  —  the  Union  of  Zemstvos, 
the  Union  of  MunicipaHties,  the  War  Industries  Committee, 
the  Imperial  Duma,  and  even  the  conservative  Council  of  the 
Empire.     In  Petrograd  and  Moscow,  strike  followed  strike. 

Yet  the  autocracy  adhered  to  its  traditions  of  secrecy,  sus- 
picion, repression,  and  intrigue.  The  Tsar  Nicholas  II  himself 
was  naturally  clement  and  well-meaning,  but  he  was  hopelessly 
dominated  by  his  wife,  the  Tsarina  Alexandra  Feodorovna; 
and  this  ambitious  and  neurotic  woman  surrounded  herself  with 
fools  and  hypocrites  and  charlatans,  chief  among  whom  was  the 
notorious  Gregory  Rasputin.  Rasputin,  a  curious  compound 
of  shrewd  peasant,  avaricious  pohtician,  erotic  maniac,  and  re- 

Q  225 


226         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

ligious  fanatic,  acted  as  oiS&cial  "medicine  man"  to  a  super- 
stitious court  and  gave  tone  and  character  to  the  blind,  perverse 
autocracy.  Rasputin  was  said,  on  good  authority,  to  have  been 
responsible  for  the  dismissal  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  from 
supreme  command  of  the  Russian  armies  in  191 5;  certainly 
Rasputin  was  a  friend  of  the  reactionary  premiers  Goremykin 
and  Stiirmer,  of  the  traitorous  War  Secretary  Soukhomlinov,  and 
especially  of  Protopopov,  the  generally  hated  and  feared  minister 
of  the  interior. 

In  November,  1916,  the  Duma  had  held  a  stormy  session,  but 
its  attacks  on  the  administration  had  produced  no  important 
results.  Boris  Stiirmer,  it  is  true,  had  been  replaced  in  the 
premiership  by  Alexander  Trepov,  but  Trepov  was  either  un- 
willing or  unable  to  persuade  the  Tsar  to  dismiss  Protopopov  or 
to  break  the  spell  of  Rasputin.  To  the  popular  Russian  mind 
it  was  becoming  ever  more  patent  that  court  circles  were  con- 
trolled by  ''dark  influences"  and  that  any  premier  acceptable 
to  the  court,  whether  a  Stiirmer  or  a  Trepov,  was  capable  of 
betraying  the  country  to  the  Germans  if  thereby  autocracy 
might  be  strengthened  in  Russia.  To  the  confirmed  bureaucrats 
the  Romanov  dynasty  seemed  to  have  much  more  in  common 
with  the  dynasties  of  the  Hohenzollerns  and  Habsburgs  than 
with  the  democracies  of  France  and  Great  Britain.  Treason 
to  the  Allied  cause  was  becoming  the  highest  object  of  states- 
manship on  the  part  of  the  Russian  Government.  At  the  same 
time  the  Russian  Government  was  pursuing  such  an  unpopular 
course  that  its  domestic  enemies  openly  charged  it  with  aiming 
to  provoke  a  futile  rebelhon,  to  suppress  the  rebelHon  by  force, 
to  quell  by  terrorism  any  agitation  for  reform,  and  to  intrench 
Russian  autocracy  anew  in  power  for  another  century. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  conspiracy  was  formed  by  several 
prominent  Russian  liberals  against  Rasputin,  and  at  the  end  of 
December,  1916,  the  sinister  monk  was  assassinated.  The 
popular  rejoicing  which  greeted  the  news  of  this  bloody  deed 
was  unmistakable  proof  of  the  wide  divergence  of  the  sentiments 
and  feelings  of  the  nation  from  those  of  the  court.  But  still 
the  court  was  deaf,  dumb,  and  bHnd  to  popular  feelings.  Ras- 
putin dead  exercised  upon  the  mind  of  the  Tsarina  —  and, 
through  her,  upon  the  Tsar  —  even  a  greater  influence  than  when 
he  was  alive.  Though  Trepov  was  dismissed  from  the  premier- 
ship he  was  replaced  by  Prince  GoHtzin,  a  typical  bureaucrat 
of  compressed  brains  and  elastic  conscience.  And  while  Prince 
Golitzin  kept  postponing  the  assembling  of  the  Duma  through- 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE"  227 

out  January  and  February,  191 7,  the  fanatical  Protopopov, 
with  a  superabundance  of  misplaced  energy,  was  suppressing 
newspapers,  breaking  up  meetings,  and  filling  the  prisons  with 
political  offenders  and  suspects. 

In  the  meantime  many  Russian  people  were  hungry.  The 
winter  of  1916-1917  was  bitterly  cold,  with  heavy  snowfalls; 
and,  although  there  was  enough  grain  in  Russia,  if  properly 
distributed,  to  satisfy  all,  nevertheless  the  enormous  demands 
of  the  army  strained  the  transport  machinery  to  its  utmost, 
and  a  situation  naturally  bad  was  rendered  incalculably  worse 
by  the  mismanagement  and  corruption  of  the  Government.  At 
the  very  time  when  bread  lines  were  becoming  a  daily  occurrence 
in  the  larger  cities  and  when  the  Government  appeared  to  have 
no  remedy  for  the  food  shortage,  the  Duma  at  last  reassembled 
in  Petrograd  on  February  27,  191 7,  —  amid  bodyguards  of 
Protopopov's  police. 

Thus  it  happened  that  early  in  March  the  national  representa- 
tives in  the  Duma  assailed  the  Government  more  vehemently 
than  ever,  while  in  Petrograd  the  workers  went  on  a  strike  and 
participated  in  street  demonstrations  and  riots.  No  concession, 
however,  was  forthcoming.  The  Government  was  plainly  de- 
termined to  overawe  workers  and  parliamentarians  alike.  On 
Sunday,  March  11,  Prince  Golitzin  formally  prorogued  the 
Duma,  and  the  military  governor  of  Petrograd  solemnly  ordered 
the  strikers  to  keep  the  peace  and  return  to  work.  But  the 
workers  simply  refused  to  obey,  and  the  Duma  decHned  to  be 
prorogued,  declaring  that  it  was  now  the  sole  constitutional  au- 
thority in  Russia.  The  supreme  test  of  Russian  autocracy  had 
come.     Could  the  Government  enforce  its  will  ? 

To  enforce  its  will  the  Government  must  command  the  loyalty 
and  obedience,  not  only  of  the  police,  but  also  of  the  soldiers,  and 
it  was  a  disquieting  symptom  that  some  soldiers  in  Petrograd 
when  directed  on  March  11  to  fire  on  the  crowd  had  mutinied. 
On  that  evening  a  Committee  of  Workmen  set  itself  up  in  the 
city  with  the  twofold  purpose  of  organizing  the  lower  classes 
for  revolutionary  purposes  and  of  winning  the  soldiers  to  their 
cause;  it  was  intent  upon  destroying  autocracy,  root  and 
branch,  and  building  some  sort  of  radical  republic.  At  once  it 
obtained  a  great  influence  over  the  troops  pouring  into  Petrograd. 

The  activities  and  threats  of  the  Petrograd  workingmen 
alarmed  the  more  moderate  Duma  and  made  the  parHamentary 
leaders  all  the  more  anxious  to  wring  speedy  and  sweeping  con- 
cessions from  the  Government.     On  the  evening  of  March  11, 


228         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Rodzianko,  the  conservative  president  of  the  Duma,  telegraphed 
the  Tsar:  *'The  situation  is  grave.  Anarchy  reigns  in  the 
capital.  The  transport  of  provisions  and  fuel  is  completely 
disorganized.  General  dissatisfaction  is  growing.  Irregular 
rifle-firing  is  occurring  in  the  streets.  It  is  necessary  to  charge 
immediately  some  persons  enjoying  the  confidence  of  the  people 
to  form  a  new  government.  It  is  impossible  to  linger.  Any 
delay  means  death.  Let  us  pray  to  God  that  the  responsibility 
in  this  hour  will  not  fall  upon  a  crowned  head." 

The  next  day  —  March  12  —  was  decisive.  The  bulk  of  the 
troops,  both  the  Petrograd  garrison  and  the  reenforcements 
brought  into  the  city,  responded  to  the  appeals  of  the  Council 
of  Workmen's  Deputies  and  engaged  in  free-for-all  fights  with 
their  officers  and  with  the  police.  In  the  afternoon  the  great 
prison  fortress  of  Saint  Peter  and  Saint  Paul  surrendered  to  the 
revolutionaries;  and  with  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  of  the  old 
regime,  the  organs  of  autocracy  ceased  to  function.  Some  of 
the  old  bureaucrats  were  arrested ;  others  made  their  escape. 

So  far  the  revolution  was  confined  to  Petrograd,  and  there 
was  much  uncertainty  both  in  the  Duma  and  in  the  Council  of 
Workmen's  Deputies  as  to  whether  the  Tsar  could  or  would  turn 
his  huge  field  armies  against  the  capital.  Attempts  of  the  Tsar 
and  of  General  Ivanov  to  reach  Petrograd  were  frustrated  by 
revolutionary  railway-employees,  who  for  two  critical  days  wil- 
fully sidetracked  or  blocked  their  trains.  Meanwhile  the  armies 
of  Brussilov  and  Ruzsky  declared  their  adherence  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  at  Moscow  and  other  important  places  in  the  interior 
of  the  empire  similar  declarations  were  made.  The  Russian 
autocracy  of  the  Romanovs  and  of  the  bureaucrats  collapsed 
universally  and  suddenly. 

As  a  result  of  negotiations  between  leaders  of  the  Duma  and 
the  Council  of  Workmen's  Deputies  at  Petrograd  —  now  styled 
the  Council  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Deputies,  or  Soviet  — 
Professor  Milyukov,  the  chief  of  the  Constitutional  Democratic 
party  in  the  Duma,  was  able  to  announce  on  the  afternoon  of 
March  15  that  an  agreement  had  been  reached:  that  it  had 
been  decided  to  depose  the  Tsar,  to  constitute  immediately  a 
provisional  government  composed  of  representatives  of  all 
parties  and  groups,  and  to  arrange  for  the  convocation  of  a 
Constituent  Assembly  at  an  early  date  to  determine  the  form  of 
a  permanent  democratic  government  for  Russia.  Earlier  on 
the  same  day,  the  Tsar  had  been  waited  upon  in  his  railway 
train  at  Pskov  and  his  abdication  had  been  counseled  by  Rod- 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE"         229 

zianko,  Alexeiev,  Brussilov,  Ruzsky,  and  the  Grand  Duke 
Nicholas.  There  was  only  one  thing  for  the  well-meaning,  weak- 
kneed  Nicholas  II  to  do  and  that  was  to  abdicate.  Abdicate 
he  did  in  graceful  language  and  in  deep  emotion ;  and,  hoping 
against  hope  that  at  least  the  dynasty  might  be  saved,  he  ab- 
dicated in  favor  of  his  brother,  the  Grand  Duke  Michael. 

The  Grand  Duke  Michael  dared  not  essay  to  play  the  imperial 
role.  On  March  16,  the  day  after  his  brother's  abdication,  he 
issued  a  statement  in  which  he  said : 

"This  heavy  responsibiHty  has  come  to  me  at  the  voluntary 
request  of  my  brother,  who  has  transferred  the  imperial  throne 
to  me  during  a  period  of  warfare  which  is  accompanied  by  un- 
precedented popular  disturbances.  Moved  by  the  thought, 
which  is  in  the  minds  of  the  entire  people,  that  the  good  of  the 
country  is  paramount,  I  have  adopted  the  firm  resolution  to 
accept  the  supreme  power  only  if  this  be  the  will  of  our  great 
people,  who,  by  a  plebiscite  organized  by  their  representatives 
in  a  Constituent  Assembly,  shall  estabhsh  a  form  of  government 
and  new  fundamental  laws  for  the  Russian  state. 

"  Consequently,  invoking  the  benediction  of  our  Lord,  I  urge 
all  citizens  of  Russia  to  submit  to  the  Provisional  Government, 
estabHshed  upon  the  initiative  of  the  Duma  and  invested  with 
full  plenary  powers,  until  such  time  which  will  follow  with  as 
little  delay  as  possible,  as  the  Constituent  Assembly,  on  a  basis 
of  universal,  direct,  equal,  and  secret  suffrage,  shall,  by  its  de- 
cision as  to  the  new  form  of  government,  express  the  will  of  the 
people." 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  Grand  Duke  Michael  entertained  any 
idea  that  he  would  ever  become  the  Tsar  of  All  the  Russias  by 
vote  of  a  Constituent  Assembly  or  otherwise.  He  must  have 
known,  what  the  revolutionaries  now  thoroughly  understood, 
that  the  Romanov  dynasty  was  permanently  retired  to  private 
life  and  that  the  autocracy  which  it  had  enshrined  for  three 
centuries  and  the  bureaucracy  with  which  it  had  been  served 
were  henceforth  forever  doomed. 

The  Provisional  Government,  as  organized  on  March  15, 
191 7,  consisted  of  a  ministry  selected  from,  and  responsible  to, 
the  Duma.  It  represented  a  coalition  of  the  parties  and  groups 
of  the  Center  and  Left  Center,  and  was  essentially  bourgeois 
and  respectable.  The  popular  elements  throughout  the  country, 
on  which  it  counted  most,  were  the  professional  classes,  business 
men,  and  country  gentlemen.  Its  head,  at  once  premier  and 
minister  of  the  interior,  was  Prince  George  Lvov,  president  of 


230         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  Union  of  Zemztvos,  member  of  the  Constitutional  Demo- 
cratic Party,  a  specialist  in  local  government,  and  an  eminently 
practical  man.  The  important  ministry  of  war  and  marine 
was  assigned  to  Guchkov,  a  moderate  conservative  of  the  Octo- 
brist  faction;  that  of  finance,  to  Terestchenko,  a  wealthy  em- 
ployer and  a  sort  of  Tory  democrat ;  that  of  justice,  to  Alexander 
Kerensky,  a  leader  of  the  radical  peasant  party  —  the  so-called 
Socialist  Revolutionaries,  —  easily  the  most  radical  member 
of  the  new  government;  and  the  ministries  of  foreign  affairs 
and  agriculture,  respectively  to  Professor  Milyukov  and  to 
Shingarev,  both  doctrinaire  liberals  belonging  to  the  Constitu- 
tional Democratic  Party.  Altogether  in  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment there  were  eight  Constitutional  Democrats,  three 
Octobrists,  and  one  Sociahst  Revolutionary. 

By  the  end  of  March,  191 7,  the  Russian  Revolution  was  an 
accomplished  fact.  The  autocracy  had  fallen.  The  Tsar  had 
been  deposed.  The  bureaucrats  were  in  prison  or  in  exile.  The 
Provisional  Government,  representing  a  coaHtion  of  the  liberal 
groups  of  the  Duma  and  championing  a  thoroughly  democratic 
regime  for  revolutionized  Russia,  had  been  accorded  formal 
recognition  by  the  United  States,  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy, 
and  Japan,  and  had  apparently  obtained  the  support  of  the  vast 
majority  of  Russian  people.  Already  thousands  of  political 
prisoners  had  been  liberated  and  brought  back  from  Siberia. 
Freedom  of  association,  of  the  press,  and  of  religion  had  been 
proclaimed.  Finland  had  been  given  back  her  constitution 
(March  20).  And  on  March  30  the  Provisional  Government 
declared:  ''The  Pohsh  nation,  liberated  and  unified,  will  settle 
for  itself  the  nature  of  its  own  government,  expressing  its  will 
by  means  of  a  Constituent  Assembly  convoked  on  the  basis  of 
universal  suffrage  in  the  capital  of  Poland."  Not  only  was  the 
autocracy  dead,  but  its  policies  were  being  reversed  as  rapidly 
as  possible. 

What  promised  to  assure  the  permanence  of  democratic 
Russia  was  the  speedy  acceptance  of  the  Revolution  by  the 
principal  army  generals.  Alexeiev,  as  generalissimo ;  Ruzsky, 
commander  of  the  northern  army  group ;  Brussilov,  commander 
of  the  southern  army  group;  Kornilov,  in  command  of  the 
Petrograd  garrison,  —  all  swore  loyalty  to  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment. Only  General  Ewarts,  commander  of  the  central  army 
group,  opposed  the  new  regime;  and  there  was  no  difficulty  in 
replacing  him  with  General  Gourko,  an  able  soldier  and  a  friend 
of  the  Revolution.     The  attitude  of  these  generals  promised 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE"  231 

even  more  than  the  permanence  of  democratic  Russia ;  it  prom- 
ised the  continued  participation  of  Russia  in  the  Great  War  and 
the  heartiest  and  most  effective  cooperation  of  Russia  with  her 
sister  democracies  of  France,  Great  Britain,  Italy,  and  the  United 
States,  against  the  menace  of  Teuton  imperiaKsm.  There  was 
gayety  in  Russia.  There  was  rejoicing  and  there  was  feting  of  the 
Russian  Revolution  in  Rome,  in  Paris,  in  London,  in  New  York, 
and  in  San  Francisco.  There  was  despair  in  old  Russian  court 
circles,  as  temporarily  there  was  gloom  in  Vienna  and  in  Berlin. 

DISINTEGRATION  OF  DEMOCRACY:   POLITICAL  AND   MILI- 
TARY EXPERIMENTS 

To  expect  the  transformation  of  Russia,  within  a  month, 
from  autocracy  to  democracy  was  to  believe  in  miracles  and 
magic.  Russia  was  a  huge,  heterogeneous  empire,  in  which 
national  ambitions  of  Finns,  Poles,  Letts,  Lithuanians,  Ukrain- 
ians, Jews,  and  Georgians  were  bound  to  interfere  with  the  suc- 
cessful operation  of  democratic  institutions,  if  not  to  constitute 
disruptive  forces.  Russia,  moreover,  was  politically  and  eco- 
nomically the  most  backward  country  in  Europe;  unlike  the 
peoples  of  France  and  Great  Britain,  the  population  of  the 
Russian  Empire  had  had  no  thorough  training  or  long  experience 
in  poHtical  democracy;  unlike  the  democracies  of  western  Eu- 
rope, the  Russian  revolutionary  government  would  have  to  base 
itself  less  upon  an  electorate  of  educated  bourgeois  and  prosperous 
inedpendent  farmers  than  upon  a  mass  of  illiterate,  poverty- 
stricken  peasants  and  upon  noisy  groups  of  ill-disciplined  urban 
workers.  For  a  democratic  harvest  in  Russia,  neither  the  field 
was  favorable  nor  the  seed  fertile. 

For  many  years  "government"  in  the  abstract  had  meant 
to  the  bulk  of  the  Russian  people  the  concrete  government  of 
the  tsars;  and  the  protracted  popular  protests  and  agitations 
against  the  tsars'  autocracy  and  bureaucracy  had  bred  in  the 
Russian  masses  a  natural  repugnance  to  government  in  general 
rather  than  any  particular  devotion  to  untried  democracy. 
Consequently,  when  the  Revolution  occurred  in  March,  191 7, 
and  the  government  of  the  Tsar  ceased  to  function,  Russia  be- 
came "democratic"  only  in  the  minds  of  the  Duma  leaders  and 
other  Russian  doctrinaires  and  of  foreigners.  What  Russia 
really  became  was  anarchical.  Extreme  individualism  sup- 
planted despotism.  The  collective  duties  and  responsibilities 
of  freedom  were  quite  lost  sight  of  in  the  frenzied  joy  of  individual 


232         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

emancipation.  Enthusiasm  was  centered  in  blind  destruction 
of  the  old  rather  than  in  farsighted  construction  of  the  new. 
Liberty  was  truly  license. 

Like  children  the  Russian  people  utilized  their  newly  won 
freedom.  In  large  numbers  they  stopped  work  and  took  holi- 
days. They  talked  and  harangued.  In  the  country  districts 
they  withheld  rents  and  taxes.  In  the  towns  they  destroyed 
machinery  and  drove  out  employers  and  inspectors.  In  the 
army  the  common  soldiers  proceeded  to  choose  their  own  officers 
and  to  debate  plans  of  campaign.  The  police  were  gone,  and 
the  armies  were  rapidly  degenerating  into  chaos. 

No  single  authority  gained  the  assent  of  the  Russian  people 
at  large.  The  Provisional  Government  of  Prince  Lvov  claimed 
sole  authority,  but  it  really  represented  only  certain  middle- 
class  groups  in  a  Duma  which  had  been  elected  by  a  very  re- 
stricted suffrage  under  the  auspices  of  the  discredited  and  fallen 
autocracy.  More  representative  of  the  bulk  of  the  Russian 
people  than  the  bourgeois  Provisional  Government  were  the 
extra-legal  Soviets  of  Workmen's,  Soldiers',  and  Peasants' 
Deputies,  which,  following  the  example  of  the  Petrograd  workers, 
hastily  sprang  up  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
country  and  even  in  the  army.  The  Soviets  were  organized 
locally,  on  something  like  a  town-meeting  basis,  and  they  un- 
doubtedly performed  very  important  services  in  satisfying  vital 
local  needs  and  in  spreading  and  applying  the  principles  of  the 
revolution  locally.  But  the  Soviets  were  too  numerous,  too 
diverse,  and  too  irresponsible  to  admit  of  unification  and  of 
effective  direction  of  constructive  policies  for  all  Russia.  Be- 
sides, the  Soviets,  being  dominated  largely  by  Socialist  Revo- 
lutionaries and  Social  Democrats,  were  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  more  moderate  parties  of  Constitutional  Democrats  and 
Octobrists  which  controlled  the  Provisional  Government.  The 
latter  were  seemingly  content  to  interpret  the  March  Revolution 
merely  as  a  political  change  from  autocracy  to  middle-class 
political  democracy,  while  the  former  were  intent  upon  pushing 
it  further  so  that  all  the  institutions  of  the  old  regime  —  social 
as  well  as  political  —  would  be  utterly  annihilated.  The  Soviets 
acted  on  the  supposition  that  the  overthrowing  of  the  Romanovs 
should  be  the  signal  for  economic  and  social  changes  so  radical 
as  to  make  the  political  program  of  the  Provisional  Government 
appear  paltry  and  ridiculous.  The  Soviets  distrusted  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  and  the  Provisional  Government  feared 
the  Soviets. 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE'*         233 

It  was  on  the  question  of  war  aims  that  the  first  significant 
cleavage  appeared  between  the  Provisional  Government  and 
the  Soviets.  Milyukov,  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  and 
Guchkov,  the  war  minister,  were  particularly  zealous  imperial- 
ists ;  they  prevailed  upon  the  Provisional  Government  to  cham- 
pion most  of  the  traditional  foreign  policies  of  the  old  autocracy 

—  a  strongly  unified  Russian  state,  a  close  secret  alliance  with 
France,  ambitious  designs  on  Constantinople  and  Armenia, 
and  an  unyielding  attitude  toward  Rumania  and  the  Balkan 
states.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Soviets  reflected  the  war  weari- 
ness of  the  Russian  masses.  Russia  had  already  suffered  more 
serious  losses  than  any  other  Great  Power;  and  the  Russian 
people  were  sick  and  tired  of  a  struggle  into  which  they  had 
blindly  been  led  by  the  Tsar  and  whose. stakes  had  been  less  the 
preservation  of  Russia  from  German  dominion  than  the  ex- 
tension of  Russian  imperialism  and  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
autocratic  regime.  Now  that  the  Tsar  was  deposed,  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Russian  people  felt  instinctively  that  all  his  policies 

—  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  —  were  discredited,  and  that  the 
political  revolution  should  carry  with  it  a  revolution  in  war 
aims.  ''Self-determination"  was  now  the  all-important  ob- 
jective of  the  Russians;  it  should  be  the  common  objective  of 
all  the  belligerent  nations.  Hitherto  the  Great  War  had  been 
a  struggle  between  governing  classes  of  different  countries  for 
imperialistic  purposes;  henceforth  it  must  be  a  popular  con- 
test for  the  assurance  of  self-determination,  and  of  that  kind 
of  self-determination  expressed  in  the  simple  formula  "no  an- 
nexations and  no  indemnities." 

Such  was  the  purport  of  resolutions  adopted  by  the  first  AU- 
Russian  Congress  of  Soviets,  which  met  in  Moscow  on  April  13, 
191 7.  The  delegates,  it  is  true,  declared  themselves  in  favor 
of  the  continuation  of  the  war,  provided  it  was  waged  on  their 
terms,  and  expressed  themselves  as  willing  to  exclude  from  the 
formula  of  "no  annexations  and  no  indemnities"  the  questions 
of  Belgium,  Poland,  Serbia,  and  Armenia.  But  in  all  other 
respects  they  insisted  upon  their  principles  and  demanded  the 
assent  of  the  Allies  to  their  formula. 

There  was  little  likelihood  of  Allied  acceptance  of  the  demands 
of  the  Russian  Soviets.  For  if  perad venture  they  should  be 
accepted,  Italy  and  Japan  would  gain  absolutely  nothing  from 
the  war;  France  would  have  to  renounce  Alsace-Lorraine  for- 
ever ;  and  Great  Britain  would  still  be  confronted  by  a  German 
Fmpire  mighty  in  resources,  in  colonies,  in  industry,  and  in 


234         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

shipping.  Nor  were  the  Soviets'  demands  attractive  to  the 
Russian  Foreign  Minister  Milyukov,  who  had  set  his  heart  on 
strict  adherence  to  the  secret  treaties  negotiated  by  the  Tsar's 
Government  with  the  several  Entente  Powers  and  who  hoped 
thereby  to  win  for  democratic  Russia  the  rich  prize  of  Con- 
stantinople, which  for  centuries  had  been  fondly  contended  for 
by  autocratic  Russia.  Accordingly,  early  in  May,  191 7, 
Milyukov  addressed  a  joint  note  to  the  Allied  Governments, 
proclaiming  the  firm  resolution  of  Russia  to  conclude  no  separate 
peace  with  the  Central  Empires,  but  to  carry  the  war  to  a  vic- 
torious conclusion  in  conformity  with  Russia's  past  engagements. 

Milyukov's  note  was  as  distasteful  to  the  Soviets  as  it  was 
pleasing  to  the  Allies.  The  Soviets  were  plainly  annoyed. 
There  were  open  demonstrations  against  the  Foreign  Minister. 
There  were  mutinous  outbreaks  in  the  army.  On  May  13, 
Guchkov  resigned  as  minister  of  war  and  navy,  and  Milyukov 
soon  followed  him  into  retirement.  The  Provisional  Govern- 
ment of  Prince  Lvov  was  breaking  down.  Real  power  was 
passing  rapidly  from  the  middle  classes  to  the  workers  and 
peasants,  from  the  Duma  to  the  Soviets. 

The  swing  of  the  revolutionary  pendulum  toward  social  radi- 
calism was  registered  in  the  reconstruction  of  Prince  Lvov's 
Provisional  Government,  on  May  16,  191 7.  This  reconstruction 
was  largely  the  work  of  Tcheidze,  a  Social  Democrat  and  the 
commanding  figure  in  the  Petrograd  Soviet,  and  Alexander 
Kerensky,  the  only  member  of  the  first  Provisional  Government 
who  sympathized  fully  with  the  aims  of  the  Soviets.  In  the 
new  ministry,  Kerensky  himself  became  minister  of  war  and 
navy;  Tchernov,  the  leader  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionaries, 
took  the  portfolio  of  agriculture ;  another  Socialist  Revolutionary 
succeeded  Kerensky  as  minister  of  justice;  Social  Democrats, 
Skobelev  and  Tseretelli,  became  ministers  respectively  of  labor 
and  of  posts  and  telegraphs.  Although  the  moderate  Con- 
stitutional Democratic  Party  was  allowed  to  retain  the  portfolio 
of  foreign  affairs,  the  new  incumbent,  Terestchenko,  was  not 
such  a  zealous  imperialist  as  Milyukov.  Altogether,  in  the 
reconstructed  Provisional  Government,  there  were  seven  Con- 
stitutional Democrats,  two  Octobrists,  three  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionaries, and  three  Social  Democrats.  The  Soviets  now  had 
several  able  representatives  in  the  Provisional  Government. 

On  the  crucial  question  of  war  aims,  a  manifesto,  drafted  in 
conference  between  the  ministry  and  the  Soviets,  was  issued 
three  days  after  the  reconstruction  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 


.     RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE"  235 

ment:  "The  Provisional  Government,  reorganized  and  re- 
enforced  by  representatives  of  the  Revolutionary  Democracy, 
declares  that  it  will  energetically  carry  into  effect  the  ideas  of 
liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  beneath  the  standards  of  which 
the  great  Russian  Revolution  came  to  birth.  ...  In  its  foreign 
policy  the  Provisional  Government,  rejecting,  in  concert  with 
the  entire  people,  all  thought  of  a  separate  peace,  adopts  openly 
as  its  aim  the  reestablishment  of  a  general  peace  which  shall 
not  tend  towards  domination  over  other  nations  or  the  seizure 
of  their  national  possessions  or  the  violent  usurpation  of  their 
territories  —  a  peace  without  annexations  or  indemnities  and 
based  on  the  right  of  nations  to  decide  their  own  affairs.  In 
the  firm  conviction  that  the  fall  of  the  regime  of  Tsardom  in 
Russia  and  the  consolidation  of  democratic  principles  in  our 
internal  and  external  policy  will  create  in  the  Allied  democracies 
new  aspirations  towards  a  stable  peace  and  the  brotherhood  of 
nations,  the  Provisional  Government  will  take  steps  towards 
bringing  about  a  new  agreement  with  the  Allies.  ..." 

The  new  Government  grappled  with  the  prodigious  problems 
of  reconstructing  and  regenerating  Russia  with  determination 
and  pluck.  Energetic  efforts  were  made  to  put  manufacturing 
plants  again  in  operation,  to  get  the  peasants  to  augment  their 
crops,  and  to  improve  the  transport  system.  To  secure  the 
assistance  of  foreign  capital  and  of  foreign  technical  advisers, 
as  well  as  to  enlighten  the  Russian  people  about  the  theories 
and  practices  of  political  democracy,  especially  its  duties  and 
responsibilities,  foreign  missions  were  welcomed  and  afforded 
every  opportunity  to  travel  and  to  lecture  throughout  the 
country ;  and  eloquent  were  the  appeals  addressed  to  the  Russian 
people  by  the  American  mission  under  Elihu  Root,  the  French 
under  Albert  Thomas,  the  Belgian  under  Emile  Vandervelde, 
and  the  British  under  Arthur  Henderson. 

Meanwhile  the  Government  was  negotiating  with  the  Entente 
Powers  for  the  summoning  of  an  Inter-Allied  Conference  which 
should  revise  the  past  secret  treaties  in  harmony  with  the  Russian 
manifesto  of  May  19;  and  at  the  same  time,  Kerensky,  with 
fiery  enthusiasm,  was  exerting  himself  to  the  utmost  to  restore 
some  discipline  in  the  army  and  to  prepare  Russia  for  a  re- 
sumption of  the  offensive  against  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary. 

It  was  an  impossible  task.  The  Allied  Governments  cer- 
tainly applauded  the  deposition  of  the  Tsar  and  wished  the 
revolutionaries  well,  but  for  the  present  they  were  naturally 
far  more  concerned  that  Russia  should  give  full  military  assistance 


236         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

to  their  war  aims  than  that  Russia  should  set  her  own  house 
in  order.  The  AlHes,  intent  upon  winning  the  war,  feared  lest 
the  Russians  should  become  so  absorbed  in  developing  their 
revolution  and  in  effecting  radical  social  readjustments  at  home 
as  to  lose  interest  in  the  war  abroad.  The  Russian  people,  on 
the  other  hand,  felt  quite  as  naturally  that  for  the  present  the 
completion  of  their  own  domestic  revolution  was  infinitely  more 
important  than  the  prosecution  of  the  foreign  war  along  lines 
determined  by  bourgeois  statesmen  in  Paris,  London,  and  Rome ; 
they  could  not  comprehend  why,  if  the  Allies  were  sincere  in 
their  good  wishes  for  the  Russian  Revolution,  favorable  response 
was  not  immediately  forthcoming  to  the  request  for  a  radical 
revision  of  war  aims ;  they  began  to  distrust  the  political  de- 
mocracies of  western  Europe,  and  to  imagine  that  France,  Italy, 
and  Great  Britain  were  addicted,  almost  as  much  as  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary,  to  the  vice  of  greedy  imperialism.  A 
fissure  was  appearing  in  the  rock  of  Entente  solidarity.  The 
Russian  people  were  perceptibly  separating  from  the  other 
Allied  nations. 

Anxiously  the  Government  of  Prince  Lvov  sought  to  prevent 
the  fissure  from  becoming  a  chasm.  They  tried  to  explain  to 
the  Russian  people  that  so  long  as  Germany  was  undefeated  the 
Revolution  was  not  safe.  They  attempted  to  make  clear  to 
the  Allies  that  until  the  Revolution  was  assured  Russia  could 
not  give  her  chief  attention  to  the  defeat  of  Germany.  The 
more  they  urged  the  Allies  to  adopt  a  conciliatory  peace  program 
the  more  fearful  grew  the  Allies  of  radical  socialistic  tendencies 
in  Russia.  The  more  the  Provisional  Government  begged  the 
Russian  people  to  continue  the  war  at  any  cost,  the  more  un- 
popular they  became  in  Russia  and  the  more  susceptible  were 
the  Russians  to  radical  socialistic  and  pacifistic  propaganda. 

The  relation  of  revolutionized  Russia  to  the  Entente  was  only 
one  aspect  of  the  insoluble  problem  before  the  Provisional 
Government.  The  Provisional  Government  itself  was  es- 
sentially unstable;  it  comprised  representatives  of  a  shadowy 
Duma  which  had  ceased  to  function  and  0/  informal  and  ir- 
regular Soviets  which  were  in  state  of  constant  flux ;  it  embraced 
leaders  of  such  diverse  and  naturally  quarrelsome  parties  as 
the  bourgeois  Octobrist  and  Constitutional  Democratic,  the 
peasants'  Socialist  Revolutionary,  and  the  proletarian  Social 
Democratic ;  it  was  a  compromise,  and  as  a  compromise  it 
pleased  no  strict  partisans.  By  virtue  of  its  composite  personnel, 
the  Provisional  Government  could  not  hope  to  carry  out  any 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   ^' PEACE  "         237 

consistent  policy  of  political  or  social  reconstruction.  Yet 
thoroughgoing  reconstruction  was  what  Russia  most  needed. 

Reconstruction  of  the  vast  Russian  Empire,  with  its  divergent 
nationalities,  its  illiterate  masses,  its  extremes  of  poverty  and 
affluence,  and  its  long  record  of  political  corruption  and  tyranny 
under  the  scepter  of  the  tsars,  would  have  been  enormously 
difficult  in  normal  times  of  peace.  It  was  rendered  well-nigh 
impossible  in  191 7  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  Russia  was  a  party 
to  the  greatest  war  in  human  annals  and  was  peculiarly  open 
to  five  forms  of  insidious  propaganda. 

In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  propaganda  of  reactionary 
elements  in  Russia.  At  first  these  elements  were  confined  pretty 
much  to  the  bureaucrats  of  the  old  regime  and  to  certain  dis- 
gruntled landlords  and  manufacturers;  and  their  propaganda, 
beginning  under  Stiirmer  and  Protopopov,  was  directed  toward 
peace  with  the  Central  Empires,  to  the  end  that  the  autocracy 
might  be  restored  and  likewise  the  social  distinctions  and  privi- 
leges of  the  old  regime.  These  elements  were  not  numerous  or 
outspoken,  but  they  had  wealth  and  a  talent  for  intrigue. 

Secondly,  there  was  the  propaganda  of  those  Russians  who, 
while  supporting  the  Revolution  in  its  earliest  stages,  denounced 
subsequent  developments  as  evil  or  inexpedient.  The  more 
radical  the  Provisional  Government  became  and  the  more  it 
catered  to  the  social  demands  of  the  Soviets,  the  noisier  and  more 
numerous  grew  these  conservative  revolutionaries,  until  by 
June,  191 7,  they  included  not  only  the  Nationalists  but  im- 
portant groups  of  Octobrists  and  Constitutional  Democrats. 
They  were  still  too  few  to  dominate  the  country  or  any  con- 
siderable part  of  it,  but  they  were  sufficiently  brilliant  and 
eloquent  to  embarrass  the  Provisional  Government.  They  in- 
sisted upon  war  at  any  price  and  denounced  the  attempts  of  the 
Government  to  obtain  a  restatement  of  Allied  war-aims.  They 
misled  the  Allies  into  thinking  that  they  represented  the  Russian 
people ;  and  their  propaganda  did  much  to  give  the  Allies  false 
hopes  and  the  masses  in  Russia  groundless  alarms.  Uncon- 
sciously and  indirectly  they  contributed  potently  to  widening 
the  breach  between  Russia  and  the  Allied  democracies. 

Thirdly,  there  was  a  movement  of  various  lesser  nationalities 
within  the  Russian  Empire  toward  political  independence  or 
autonomy.  Poles  and  Finns  were  determined  to  utilize  the 
destruction  of  the  tsardom  in  order  to  free  themselves  entirely 
from  union  with  Russia.  In  April,  191 7,  a  congress  of  Little 
Russians  (Ruthenians)  met  at  Kiev  and  demanded  complete 


238         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

autonomy  for  a  Ukrainia  which  should  reach  from  the  Pripet 
River  on  the  north  to  the  Black  Sea  and  Kuban  River  on  the 
south  and  from  the  Don  on  the  east  to  the  Dniester  and  Bug 
on  the  west.  In  July  a  national  assembly  of  Esthonians  met  at 
Reval  and  formed  a  provisional  government.  In  August  a 
conference  of  the  Letts  of  Courland  and  Livonia,  convened  in 
Riga,  demanded  ^'a,  united,  politically  autonomous  Lettland 
(Latvia)  within  the  Russian  Republic."  Similar  demands  were 
made  by  Lithuanians  and  by  Georgians  of  the  Caucasus.  And 
all  these  national  committees  and  "provisional  governments" 
engaged  actively  in  propaganda  which  threatened  to  disrupt  the 
Russian  Empire  not  only,  but  to  stimulate  the  counter-agitation 
of  Russian  conservatives  and  to  serve  the  cause  of  Germany. 

Fourthly,  there  was  out-and-out  German  propaganda.  Be- 
fore the  Revolution  a  goodly  number  of  German  agents  had  been 
at  work  in  Russia  intriguing  with  old-regime  bureaucrats  for  a 
separate  peace.  After  the  Revolution  the  unsettled  political 
and  social  conditions  in  Russia  enabled  the  Teutons  to  widen 
and  deepen  their  efforts  to  secure  by  intrigue  what  they  had 
failed  to  obtain  by  force  of  arms.  The  German  agents  were 
now  all  things  to  all  Russians.  To  reactionaries,  they  were 
apostles  of  a  counter-revolution  which  could  be  achieved  only 
by  the  cessation  of  war.  To  extreme  revolutionaries,  they  were 
devotees  of  the  doctrine  that  the  revolution  could  be  completed 
only  if  the  existing  Provisional  Government,  which  sought  to 
continue  the  war,  were  overthrown.  The  separatist  propaganda 
among  the  lesser  nationalities  within  Russia  they  aided  and 
abetted.  But  principally  they  devoted  their  energies  to  under- 
mining the  morale  of  the  Russian  field- armies.  With  the  fall  of 
autocracy,  discipline  in  the  Russian  armies  rapidly  decHned; 
privates  left  the  ranks  and  went  home  without  leave ;  officers 
who  tried  to  do  their  duty  were  arrested  by  the  men ;  fighting 
ceased;  and  Russian  and  German  soldiers  began  to  fraternize. 
Taking  advantage  of  this  situation,  German  agents  went  about 
in  the  Russian  lines  trying  to  persuade  the  troops  to  demand  a 
separate  peace  or  at  least  an  armistice.  The  French  and  British 
were  accused  of  the  grossest  imperialism  and  of  a  desire  needlessly 
to  prolong  the  carnage  and  bloodshed  in  order  to  further  their 
own  selfish  ambitions ;  and  the  Teutons  were  represented  as 
angelic  victims  of  the  jealousy  and  greed  of  others  and  as  con- 
firmed friends  of  a  just  and  durable  peace.  The  German  agents 
insisted  that  the  Central  Empires  were  willing  and  anxious  to 
conclude  peace  but  that  the  Entente  was  not. 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   ''PEACE''  239 

Finally,  most  directly  menacing  to  the  unity  and  permanence 
of  the  Provisional  Government  was  the  propaganda  of  the 
Russian  revolutionaries  of  the  extreme  Left.  These  ultra- 
revolutionaries  assailed  the  members  of  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary and  Social  Democratic  parties  who  had  accepted  port- 
folios in  a  ''bourgeois"  government,  charging  them  with 
sacrificing  the  social  revolution  to  the  poHtical  exigencies  of 
war.  Gradually,  by  means  of  this  kind  of  propaganda,  a  con- 
siderable number  of  revolutionary  peasants  were  weaned  away 
from  the  leadership  of  Tchernov  and  Kerensky,  and  a  large 
proportion  of  urban  workers  transferred  their  loyalty  from 
Tseretelli  and  Tcheidze  to  still  more  radical  Social  Democrats. 
Gradually  many  Soviets  passed  from  moderate  Socialism  to 
extreme  Socialism.  And  the  leaders  of  extreme  SociaHsm  in 
Russia  stood  quite  outside  of  organized  government ;  they  were 
as  anxious  to  rid  Russia  of  Prince  Lvov's  provisional  middle- 
class  democracy  as  they  were  to  have  done  once  and  for  all  with 
the  Tsar  Nicholas's  divine-right  autocracy. 

Russian  SociaHsm  in  the  twentieth  century  comprised  two 
major  movements.  The  one,  essentially  indigenous,  extolled 
Russian  national  customs  and  aimed  at  expropriating  great 
landowners  and  establishing  a  kind  of  peasant  proprietorship 
with  cooperative  features ;  it  appealed  to  the  agricultural  lower 
classes  and  was  crystallized  into  the  SociaHst  Revolutionary 
Party.  The  other,  an  imported  product,  took  its  faith  and  works 
from  Karl  Marx  and  his  doctrinaire  disciples  in  western  Europe; 
it  emphasized  the  '' class-struggle,"  the  eventually  inevitable 
rout  of  capitalism  by  a  class-conscious  proletariat,  and  all  the 
other  tenets  of  international  Socialism ;  it  spread  among  urban 
workers  and  found  expression  in  the  Social  Democratic  Party. 

But  the  Social  Democratic  Party,  since  its  second  congress, 
in  1903,  had  been  divided  into  two  wings,  the  Bolsheviki,  or 
'' majority,"  and  the  Mensheviki,  or  "minority."  At  first  the 
two  wings  differed  merely  on  matters  of  party  organization,  but 
in  course  of  time  their  separation  and  mutual  antagonism  were 
increased  by  divergent  views  as  to  party  tactics.  The  Bolsheviki 
cherished  the  strict  Marxist  precepts,  including  the  idea  that 
the  Socialist  state  of  the  future  would  be  ushered  in  by  an  over- 
whelming cataclysm,  sudden,  proletarian,  and  international. 
The  Mensheviki,  on  the  other  hand,  were  '' reformist,"  in  the 
sense  in  which  that  word  was  used  in  Germany  and  France; 
they  beHeved  that  Russia  could  be  Socialized  only  through  the 
cooperation  of  Social  Democrats  with  other  radicals,  through 


240        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

gradual  political  and  economic  reforms,  and  through  the  slow 
education  of  the  masses.  In  practice  the  Mensheviki  were  the 
moderates,  and  the  Bolsheviki  the  extremists.  Despite  the  fact 
that  the  extremists  constituted  a  minority  of  Russian  SociaHsts, 
the  appellation  of  Bolsheviki,  or  *' majority,"  still  stuck  to  them. 

In  the  reconstructed  Provisional  Government  of  Prince  Lvov, 
the  Socialist  Revolutionaries  had  three  representatives  including 
Tchernov  and  Kerensky,  and  the  Mensheviki  had  three.  The 
Bolsheviki,  alone  of  the  SociaHst  groups,  were  not  represented ; 
they  were  too  extreme  for  the  comfort  and  safety  of  the  moderate 
revolutionaries,  and  besides,  their  strict  principles  forbade  them 
to  accept  office  in  a  "bourgeois"  government  even  if  they  were 
invited.  Relieved  of  all  responsibihty  of  dealing  with  the  actual 
problems  then  confronting  the  Provisional  Government,  the 
Bolsheviki  were  free  to  make  the  most  bitter  attacks  upon  the 
government  and  at  the  same  time  to  make  the  most  extravagant 
promises  to  ignorant  workers  and  peasants  concerning  the 
millennium  which  they  would  inaugurate  if  they  had  the  chance. 
For  conducting  this  highly  subversive  and  destructive  propa- 
ganda the  Bolsheviki  had  two  remarkable  leaders  and  agitators 
in  Lenin  and  Trotsky. 

Vladimir  Ulyanov,  better  known  under  his  pen-name  of 
Nikolai  Lenin,  belonged  by  birth  and  training  to  the  Russian 
nobility,  but  as  a  young  man  he  had  become  a  revolutionary 
and  in  1899  had  published  an  important  book  on  "The  Develop- 
ment of  Capitalism  in  Russia."  A  doctrinaire  Socialist  of  the 
most  dogmatic  type,  he  had  lived  in  exile  in  Switzerland  almost 
continuously  from  1900  until  the  Revolution  of  March,  191 7, 
when  the  German  Government  permitted  him  to  return  to  Russia. 
He  accepted  German  assistance  and  German  gold,  but  he  had 
as  little  love  for  the  Hohenzollerns  as  for  the  Romanovs. 

Leon  Trotsky,  a  Moscow  Jew  whose  name  was  really  Bronstein, 
belonged  to  the  middle  class.  Becoming  a  radical  socialist, 
he  had  been  imprisoned  for  poHtical  offenses  and  transported  to 
Siberia.  Escaping  thence,  he  had  Hved  several  years  in  Vienna 
and  in  Paris.  Expelled  from  France  in  191 6,  he  arrived  in  New 
York  in  the  following  January,  but  in  May  managed  to  reach 
Russia. 

The  Bolshevist  program  of  Lenin  and  Trotsky  in  the  spring 
of  1917  was  as  follows:  (i)  the  Soviets  of  Workmen,  Soldiers, 
and  Peasants,  to  constitute  themselves  the  actual  revolutionary 
government  and  exercise  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat ; 
(2)  immediate  confiscation  of  landed  estates  without  compensa- 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND   MAKES   ''PEACE"         241 

tion  and  without  waiting  for  legal  forms,  the  peasants  organizing 
into  Soviets ;  (3)  control  of  production  and  distribution  by  the 
revolutionary  government,  nationalization  of  monopolies,  and 
repudiation  of  the  national  debt;  (4)  the  workmen  to  take 
possession  of  factories  and  operate  them  in  conjunction  with 
technical  experts;  (5)  refusal  by  the  Soviets  to  recognize  any 
treaties  made  by  the  governments  either  of  the  Tsar  or  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  the  immediate  pubHcation  of  all  such  treaties ; 
(6)  the  workers  to  propose  at  once  and  pubHcly  an  immediate 
armistice,  and  negotiations  for  peace  to  be  carried  out  by  the 
proletariat  and  not  by  the  bourgeoisie ;  and  (7)  bourgeois  war 
debts  to  be  paid  exclusively  by  the  capitalists.  Lenin  himself 
proposed  further  ''that  universal,  equal,  direct,  and  secret 
suffrage  be  frankly  abandoned,  and  that  only  the  industrial 
proletariat  and  the  poorest  section  of  the  peasantry  be  permitted 
to  vote  at  all." 

In  repudiating  political  democracy  and  in  demanding  im- 
mediate peace,  the  Bolsheviki  arrayed  themselves  squarely 
against  the  Mensheviki  and  SociaHst  Revolutionaries  as  well  as 
against  the  bourgeois  parties.  Manifestly  the  whole  Provisional 
Government  was  menaced  by  Bolshevist  propaganda. 

In  June,  the  All-Russia  Congress  of  Soviets  assembled  in 
Petrograd  under  the  presidency  of  the  Menshevist  leader 
Tcheidze.  A  furious  attack  by  Lenin  on  the  Coalition  Govern- 
ment, especially  on  Kerensky,  was  successfully  answered  by 
Tseretelli  and  other  Mensheviki,  and  for  the  time  being  the 
moderates,  the  friends  of  law  and  order,  triumphed.  Late  in 
June  an  attempted  uprising  of  Bolsheviki  in  Petrograd  fell  flat. 
Apparently  there  was  still  a  large  measure  of  popular  faith  in 
the  Provisional  Government. 

The  Provisional  Government  was  staking  everything  on  the 
outcome  of  the  military  measures  which  at  that  very  time  it 
was  taking.  Kerensky,  the  war  minister,  had  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  an  advance  of  the  Russian  armies  against  the 
Teutons,  even  if  trifling  in  itself,  would  do  incalculable  good  to 
the  Provisional  Government  by  offsetting  subversive  propaganda 
ahke  of  the  Germans  and  of  the  Bolsheviki,  by  reenforcing  the 
faith  of  the  Allies  in  the  Revolution,  and  by  reinvigorating  the 
morale  of  Russia  both  mihtary  and  civilian. 

Supreme  efforts  were  put  forth  by  Kerensky  in  June  to  prepare 
the  Russian  field-armies  for  a  resumption  of  the  offensive.  With 
his  burning  eyes  and  hoarse  voice  and  with  restless  energy  the 
war-minister  visited  the  several  commands  at  the  front  and  went 


242         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

among  the  common  soldiers,  urging  upon  all  the  paramount 
duty  of  acting  loyally  together  and  of  fighting  the  Teutons  to 
the  last  ditch.  Supplies  and  reenforcements  were  rushed  up, 
and  important  changes  were  made  in  the  General  Staff.  Generals 
Alexeiev  and  Gourko  were  dismissed  because  of  their  increasingly 
unsympathetic  attitude  toward  Kerensky,  and  were  succeeded 
respectively  as  generalissimo  and  commander  of  the  central 
army  group  by  Generals  Brussilov  and  Denikin. 

At  this  time  the  Teutonic  armies  on  the  Eastern  Front  em- 
braced three  groups:  (i)  the  northern  group,  under  Prince 
Leopold  of  Bavaria,  extending  from  the  Baltic  to  a  point  just 
south  of  Brzezany;  (2)  the  central  group,  under  Archduke 
Joseph  Frederick,  extending  thence  to  the  Rumanian  frontier; 
and  (3)  the  southern  group,  under  Field  Marshal  von  Mackensen, 
arrayed  against  the  Russo-Rumanians  along  the  Sereth.  It 
was  against  the  right  wing  of  the  northern  group,  under  Boehm- 
Ermolli,  and  the  left  wing  of  the  central  group,  under  Count 
Bothmer,  that  General  Brussilov,  the  new  Russian  Chief  of 
Staff,  decided  to  launch  the  offensive.  He  would  seize  Brzezany, 
Halicz,  and  Stryj,  and  thence  advance  on  Lemberg. 

Russian  artillery  preparations  began  in  the  early  morning  of 
June  29,  191 7,  and  on  July  i,  the  infantry  leaped  from  their 
trenches  and  charged  the  Teutons.  To  the  southeast  of  Lemberg 
unexpected  success  crowned  the  Russian  offensive.  The  Lomnica 
River,  the  last  natural  defense  in  front  of  Stryj,  was  gallantly 
crossed;  and  simultaneously  with  this  attack  south  of  the 
Dniester,  the  Russians  started  a  drive  on  the  Dniester  itself, 
capturing  Halicz  on  July  10.  Within  ten  days  the  Russians 
had  taken  50,000  prisoners  and  vast  quantities  of  war  material 
and  had  driven  a  wedge  twenty  miles  long  and  ten  miles  deep 
into  the  Austro-German  lines.  But  this  was  the  high  tide  of 
Russian  success. 

Sudden,  heavy  rainfall  swelled  the  Galician  streams  and 
rendered  them  difficult  to  ford ;  Teutonic  reserves  were  hurried 
to  threatened  positions  on  the  Eastern  Front ;  and  in  the  Russian 
ranks  the  revolutionary  lack  of  discipline  soon  received  most 
painful  illustration.  Russian  regiments  in  the  vicinity  of 
Brzezany,  under  General  Erdelli,  abandoned  their  posts  and 
threw  down  their  arms,  and  during  the  last  week  of  July  their 
mutinous  spirit  was  communicated  to  other  commands,  with 
most  disastrous  results.  The  tragic  facts  were  recorded  in  a 
telegram  sent  to  Kerensky  by  General  Erdelli : 

^' A  fatal  crisis  has  occurred  in  the  morale  of  the  troops  recently 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND   MAKES   "PEACE"         243 

sent  forward  against  the  enemy.  Most  of  the  miUtary  are  in  a 
state  of  complete  disorganization.  Their  spirit  for  an  offensive 
has  utterly  disappeared ;  they  no  longer  listen  to  the  orders  of 
their  leaders,  and  they  neglect  all  the  exhortations  of  their  com- 
rades, even  replying  to  them  by  threats  and  shots.  Some  ele- 
ments voluntarily  evacuate  their  positions  without  even  waiting 
for  the  approach  of  the  enemy.  Cases  are  on  record  in  which 
an  order  to  proceed  with  all  haste  to  such  and  such  a  spot  to 
assist  hard-pressed  comrades  has  been  discussed  for  several 
hours  at  meetings,  and  the  reenforcements  consequently  de- 
layed for  several  hours.  .  .  .  For  a  distance  of  several  hundred 
versts  long  files  of  deserters,  both  armed  and  unarmed  men,  who 
are  in  good  health  and  robust,  but  who  have  utterly  lost  all 
shame,  are  proceeding  to  the  rear  of  the  army.  Frequently 
entire  units  desert  in  this  manner.  .  .  .  Orders  have  been 
given  to-day  to  fire  upon  deserters  and  runaways.  Let  the 
Government  find  courage  to  shoot  those  who  by  their  cowardice 
are  selling  Russia  and  the  Revolution." 

Appeals  from  officers  at  the  front  and  appeals  from  the  Pro- 
visional Government  could  not  stay  the  rout.  The  whole 
Russian  line  in  Galicia  was  now  in  flight,  and  all  the  gains  of 
191 6  were  wiped  out  in  a  day.  The  Germans,  with  their  Austrian 
allies,  occupied  Halicz,  Tarnopol,  Stanislau,  Czernowitz,  and 
Kolomea,  and  drove  the  fugitive  Russians  across  their  own  border 
and  entirely  out  of  Galicia  and  Bukowina.  General  Erdelli  was 
assassinated,  and  on  August  2,1917,  Kornilov  succeeded  Brussilov 
in  nominal  command  of  the  disorganized  Russian  armies. 

To  the  south,  the  Rumanians  assailed  Mackensen's  army- 
group  in  order  to  save  the  Russian  retreat  from  becoming  a 
final  disaster.  Though  unable  to  make  much  headway  against 
the  Austro-Germans,  the  Rumanians  acquitted  themselves 
most  admirably  and  at  least  prevented  Mackensen  from  in- 
flicting serious  counter-attacks  upon  them.  The  last  effort  of 
the  Teutons  to  cross  the  Sereth  met  with  decisive  failure  on 
August  19. 

While  the  southern  army-group  of  the  Teutons  was  held  in 
check  at  the  Sereth  and  the  central  army-group  rested  near  the 
Russo-Galician  frontier,  the  northern  group  in  August  utilized 
Russian  demoralization  in  order  to  carry  German  invasion 
further  into  the  Baltic  Provinces.  Late  in  August,  German 
forces  under  General  von  Hutier,  reached  the  River  Aa  and 
attacked  at  Keckau,  ten  miles  south  of  Riga.  On  September  2, 
they  cut  the  Dvinsk  railway  five  miles  east  of  the  Dlina  River. 


244         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

On  the  following  day  the  Russians  evacuated  Riga  and  the 
Germans  entered  in  triumph.  On  September  23,  Hutier  cap- 
tured Jacobs tadt,  seventy  miles  up  the  Duna  from  Riga.  In 
October,  following  some  naval  fighting,  the  Germans  occupied 
the  islands  at  the  mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Riga,  and  threatened  the 
chief  Russian  naval-base  at  Reval. 

Meanwhile  the  fate  of  the  Provisional  Government  was  sealed. 
Having  risked  everything  on  a  military  offensive,  the  moderate 
Revolutionaries,  in  the  turn  of  the  war-tide,  had  lost  everything. 
On  one  hand,  the  militarists  and  patriots  redoubled  their  at- 
tacks upon  the  Government,  blaming  it  for  the  destruction  of 
military  discipline.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bolsheviki  put  all 
the  blame  upon  the  "militaristic"  policies  and  ambitions  of  a 
Government  dominated  by  the  bourgeoisie. 

On  July  17,  191 7,  Prince  Lvov  and  other  Constitutional  Demo- 
cratic members  of  the  Provisional  Government  resigned,  and  on 
the  same  day  the  Bolsheviki  in  Petrograd,  led  by  Lenin  and 
Trotsky,  attempted  to  seize  the  reins  of  government.  The 
Bolsheviki  were  supported  by  Kronstadt  sailors  and  by  various 
disaffected  elements  in  the  garrison.  But  Kerensky  threw  him- 
self with  ardor  into  the  struggle  against  them,  and,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  Petrograd  Soviet,  which  was  still  under  Menshe- 
vist  influence,  he  succeeded  in  putting  down  the  insurrection. 
Kerensky,  however,  in  his  moment  of  victory,  declined  to  disarm 
the  workmen  and  dared  not  punish  the  Bolshevist  leaders.  On 
July  20,  the  war  minister  became  head  of  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment and  assumed  a  practical  dictatorship. 

It  was  Kerensky's  hope  that  by  arranging  for  an  early  as- 
sembling of  the  Inter-Allied  Conference,  at  which  the  war-aims 
would  be  restated  in  terms  similar  to  those  which  President 
Wilson  had  employed,  and  by  definitely  fixing  the  date  for  elec- 
tions to  a  Constituent  Assembly,  September  30,  and  at  the  same 
time  by  sternly  repressing  the  Bolsheviki,  it  might  be  possible 
to  save  Russia.  Alexander  Kerensky  doubtless  knew  that  his 
was  a  forlorn  hope.  At  any  rate,  despite  his  almost  super- 
human efforts,  and  the  loyal  support  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
Soviets,  his  eventual  defeat  was  only  a  question  of  time.  Day 
after  day  conditions  grew  worse.  The  military  situation  went 
rapidly  from  bad  to  worse.  Finances  were  in  chaos.  Re- 
ationaries,  at  one  extreme,  and  Bolsheviki,  at  the  other,  waxed 
more  wroth  and  violent.  The  Allies  kept  postponing  their 
conference  and  obscuring  their  war-aims.  The  separatist 
tendencies  of  lesser  nationalities  within  Russia  became  more 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   "PEACE"         245 

pronounced.  And  above  all,  German  propaganda  everywhere 
took  root  and  flourished  and  bore  fruit  in  increasing  abundance. 
The  Great  Russian  Revolution  was  not  leading  immediately 
to  orderly  democratic  government  and  to  more  effective  par- 
ticipation in  the  war ;  rather,  it  was  now  heading  straight  toward 
anarchy  and  full  confession  of  national  defeat  and  disgrace. 

Late  in  August,  an  Extraordinary  National  Conference  met 
in  Moscow,  representing  all  classes  and  all  parties.  For  three 
days  the  great  assembly  debated  and  listened  to  speeches  from 
leading  revolutionaries :  Kerensky,  Tseretelli,  Tcheidze,  Kropot- 
kin,  and  Madame  Breshkovskaya  spoke  for  the  workers ;  Generals 
Kornilov  and  Kaledine,  for  the  army ;  and  Milyukov,  Guchkov, 
and  others,  for  the  bourgeoisie.  Strangely  enough,  there  was 
an  apparent  agreement  among  the  great  majority  of  the  dele- 
gates on  three  vital  points  —  (i)  the  reform  of  the  army  and  the 
restoration  of  its  discipline,  (2)  the  continuance  of  the  war,  and 
(3)  the  reconciliation  of  party  quarrels.  But  with  most  the 
first  two  were  merely  pious  wishes,  and  the  third  was  irony. 
The  breaches  had  not  been  closed.  The  Radicals  insisted  upon 
the  ultimate  control  of  the  Government  by  the  Soviets,  which 
the  Moderates  bitterly  opposed.  Three-fourths  of  Russia  out- 
side of  the  Conference  had  no  inclination  for  the  sacrifice  and 
discipline  which  a  continuance  of  the  war  demanded.  "The 
gulf  between  the  soldiers  and  the  dreamers  had  been  made 
visible  to  all,  and  across  it  straddled  Kerensky,  a  hopeless  Colos- 
sus, who  must  soon  make  his  election  and  leap  to  one  side,  or 
fall  into  the  chasm." 

At  first  Kerensky  leaned  toward  the  soldiers.  He  postponed 
the  elections  to  the  National  Constituent  Assembly  from  Septem- 
ber 30  to  November  25.  He  strengthened  military  discipline 
by  decreeing  the  restoration  of  the  death-penalty.  And  early 
in  September  he  seems  to  have  concerted  plans  with  General 
Kornilov  for  the  establishment  of  a  military  dictatorship.  At 
any  rate,  Kornilov  drew  up  a  scheme  for  a  Council  of  National 
Defense,  with  himself  as  president  and  with  Kerensky  as  vice- 
president. 

Then  suddenly  Kerensky  veered  toward  the  radicals.  Fearful 
of  the  effect  of  a  military  dictatorship,  he  ordered  Kornilov's 
removal.  Kornilov,  on  his  side,  dispatched  a  division  of  troops, 
drawn  from  the  front,  against  Petrograd.  This  revolt  was 
crushed  without  much  trouble  and  with  very  little  bloodshed, 
Kornilov  being  arrested  and  Kerensky  assuming  the  supreme 
command  of  the  Russian  armies. 


246         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

But  the  Russian  armies  were  already  in  process  of  rapid  dis- 
solution. Without  loyal  troops  no  military  dictator,  whether  a 
Kornilov  or  a  Kerensky,  could  long  maintain  himself.  In  vain 
Kerensky  leaned  further  toward  the  extremists.  A  National 
Democratic  Conference  convened  on  September  27  and  con- 
tented itself  with  summoning  a  "Preliminary  Parliament," 
which  met  on  October  8  and  wasted  time  in  idle  debate.  Neither 
of  these  consultative  bodies  had  any  cohesion  or  dignity.  All 
political  groups  and  all  social  classes  which  had  at  any  time  sup- 
ported the  Provisional  Government  or  Kerensky,  were,  like  the 
Russian  armies,  in  process  of  disintegration.  Moderate  political 
democracy  had  failed  in  Russia.  Military  dictatorship  had 
likewise  failed. 

What  was  left  was  one  extreme  political  faction  —  the  Bol- 
sheviki.  And  the  Bolsheviki  were  resolutely  determined  to 
create  a  class-dictatorship.  They  were  already  well  organized 
and  now  they  were  in  a  position  to  make  capital  out  of  the  mani- 
fest failures  of  Lvov,  Milyukov,  Kornilov,  and  Kerensky.  The 
overthrow  of  the  political  tsardom  in  March,  191 7,  was  to  be  sup- 
plemented in  November  by  the  destruction  of  Russian  society. 

DICTATORSHIP  OF  THE  BOLSHEVIKI:  THE  NOVEMBER 
(1917)  REVOLUTION 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  why  Kerensky  lost  the  support  of 
the  army  and  of  the  Russian  people  was  the  failure  on  the  part 
of  his  Government  to  persuade  the  Allies  to  restate  their  war- 
aims  in  accordance  with  the  peace  formula  of  the  Soviets.  Time 
and  again  Kerensky  had  assured  the  Soviets  that  the  Allies  were 
about  to  hold  a  conference  to  revise  their  war-aims,  but  time 
and  again  the  date  of  the  conference  had  been  postponed.  At 
last,  on  November  i,  Kerensky  in  despair  served  notice  on  the 
Allies  that  Russia  was  exhausted  and  that  the  other  members 
of  the  Entente  would  thereafter  have  to  shoulder  the  burden. 
Although  on  this  occasion  be  added  that  his  warning  did  not 
imply  the  withdrawal  of  Russia  from  the  war,  nevertheless  the 
Allies  took  fright  and  announced  that  their  long-deferred  con- 
ference would  be  held  in  Paris  late  in  November. 

But  the  hope  that  the  Paris  Conference  would  satisfy  the 
longing  in  Russia  for  an  early  peace  was  not  realized.  Mr. 
Bonar  Law,  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  behalf  of 
the  British  Government,  declared  that  the  conference  would  not 
deal  with  "political"  matters,  that  is,  with  the  revision  of  war- 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   ''PEACE"         247 

aims,  but  would  concern  itself  simply  with  the  discussion  of 
more  effective  means  of  prosecuting  the  war. 

This  statement  caused  bitter  disappointment  in  Russia  and 
furnished  the  Bolsheviki  with  a  potent  means  of  completing  the 
undermining  of  Kerensky's  Government.  Under  Kerensky, 
they  pointed  out,  Russia  could  not  wage  war  or  make  peace; 
under  a  dictatorship  of  their  own,  Russia  could  and  immediately 
would  make  peace.  And  the  masses  of  war-weary  Russian  peas- 
ants and  workmen  were  now  quite  willing  to  acquiesce  in  any 
dictatorship,  provided  only  that  it  would  bring  peace.  To  the 
ignorant  masses  the  Bolsheviki  promised  peace  not  only,  but  the 
millennium  besides. 

The  drift  of  popular  opinion  in  Russia  was  clearly  observable 
in  the  new  elections  to  the  Congress  of  Soviets,  which  had  been 
called  to  convene  on  November  7.  Of  nearly  seven  hundred 
delegates  elected,  a  large  majority  adhered  to  Bolshevism.  To 
be  sure,  certain  Soviets  refused  to  send  delegates  and  others 
were  intimidated  by  Bolshevist  partisans.  But  the  fact  re- 
mained that  for  the  first  time,  in  November,  191 7,  the  Bolsheviki 
apparently  had  a  majority  in  a  working-class  convention. 

Already  the  Bolshevist  Trotsky  had  succeeded  the  Menshevist 
Tcheidze  in  the  presidency  of  the  Petrograd  Soviet.  With  this 
support  Trotsky  and  his  associates  now  set  to  work  to  prepare  a 
kind  of  General  Staff,  called  the  Military  Revolutionary  Com- 
mittee, which  should  coordinate  the  Bolshevist  elements  in 
the  army  and  navy  and  in  the  industrial  communities  and  or- 
ganize bands  of  ''Red  Guards."  Time  seemed  ripe  for  a  Bol- 
shevist Revolution  and  for  the  establishment  of  the  dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat. 

On  the  night  of  November  6,  a  few  hours  before  the  convoca- 
tion of  the  Congress  of  Soviets,  the  Bolsheviki  struck  the  de- 
cisive blow.  Red  Guards  occupied  the  principal  government 
buildings  in  Petrograd ;  part  of  the  local  garrison  joined  them, 
the  other  part  simply  refusing  to  do  anything.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  November  7,  the  members  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment were  placed  under  arrest  in  the  Winter  Palace,  Kerensky 
alone  managing  to  escape. 

On  November  8,  the  All-Russian  Congress  of  Soviets  ratified 
the  Bolshevist  coup  d'etat  and  formally  entrusted  the  conduct 
of  affairs  to  a  body  styled  the  Council  of  People's  Commissioners, 
with  Lenin  as  premier,  Trotsky  as  people's  commissioner  for 
foreign  affairs,  and  General  Krylenko  as  commander-in-chief 
of  the  armies. 


248         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Of  the  Bolshevist  regime,  two  or  three  aspects  are  worthy  of 
emphasis  at  the  present  time.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  based 
on  force  and  violence  rather  than  upon  the  mandate  of  a  popular 
majority.  It  originated  in  a  coup  d^etat,  and  it  was  maintained 
by  methods  which  savored  of  the  old  Tsardom.  Its  enemies  — 
whether  reactionaries,  or  moderates  such  as  Octobrists  and 
Constitutional  Democrats,  or  radicals  such  as  Socialist  Revo- 
lutionaries and  Mensheviki  —  were  put  under  surveillance. 
Opposition  newspapers  were  suppressed.  Terrorism  was  in- 
voked and  increasingly  practiced. 

Secondly,  the  new  regime  was  essentially  a  dictatorship  in 
the  interest  of  certain  classes  in  the  community.  Its  internal 
policy  was  directed  toward  effecting  a  complete  social  revolution. 
Aristocracy  and  bourgeoisie  must  go;  the  rights  of  property 
were  no  longer  to  be  respected.  One  of  the  first  decrees  of  the 
Bolshevist  Government  empowered  municipal  authorities  to 
seize  any  houses  whether  inhabited  or  not  and  to  allow  citizens 
who  possessed  no  adequate  dwelling  to  occupy  them.  Another 
decreed  the  transfer  of  all  factories  into  the  hands  of  the  work- 
men. But  the  chief  of  these  early  measures  was  the  decree  which 
undertook  to  solve  the  land  problem :  private  ownership  being 
abolished,  the  land  was  to  be  nationalized  and  to  be  turned  over 
to  the  people  who  cultivated  it ;  local  committees  were  to  dis- 
pose of  all  large  holdings  and  all  lands  belonging  to  state  and 
church;  mines,  waterways,  and  forests  of  national  importance, 
were  to  be  expropriated  by  the  state ;  and  smaller  forests  and 
waterways  were  to  become  the  property  of  the  village  com- 
munities.^ 

Thirdly,  the  Bolshevist  regime  was  not  a  step  forward  in  the 
direction  of  political  democracy,  at  least  of  ''political  democracy" 
as  that  phrase  had  been  interpreted  in  western  Europe,  in  the 
United  States,  and  by  the  preceding  Provisional  Government  of 
Russia.  The  Bolsheviki  themselves  constituted  a  minority  — 
a  very  small  minority  —  of  the  Russian  people ;  and  when  the 
elections  to  the  National  Constituent  Assembly,  which  was 
conducted  in  November,  191 7,  on  the  democratic  basis  of  equal, 
direct,  universal,  and  secret  suffrage,  returned  a  large  majority 
of  Socialist  Revolutionaries  stanchly  opposed  to  the  Bolsheviki, 
the  Council  of  People's  Commissioners  became  convinced  that 
the  only  way  in  which  it  could  maintain  itself  in  power  was  to 

^  Subsequent  decrees  disestablished  the  Russian  Church,  repudiated  most  of  the 
national  debt,  and  transferred  the  seat  of  government  from  Petrograd  to  Moscow 
(February,  191 8). 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND   MAKES   "PEACE"         249 

repudiate  political  democracy.  At  first,  it  merely  postponed  the 
opening  of  the  National  Assembly  from  December  12,  191 7,  to 
January  18,  1918.  Subsequently,  it  charged  the  Assembly  with 
being  a  counter-revolutionary  body,  and  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party  with  being  a  traitorous  party  *' directing  the  fight 
of  the  bourgeoisie  against  the  workers'  revolution."  Not  only 
was  the  National  Constituent  Assembly  suppressed,-  but  local 
Soviets  which  could  not  be  controlled  by  the  Bolsheviki  were 
likewise  dissolved  and  many  of  their  leaders  were  imprisoned 
or  exiled.  Proletarian  dictatorship  —  not  political  democracy 
—  was  the  end  and  aim  of  the  Bolshevist  regime.  In  this  re- 
spect their  government,  strictly  speaking,  was  not  a  champion  of 
either  Anarchism  or  Marxian  Socialism — it  represented  rather  an 
attempt  to  achieve  communism  by  methods  essentially  tsar-like. 

To  secure  "popular"  support  for  the  "proletarian  dictator- 
ship," care  was  taken  by  the  Council  of  People's  Commissioners 
to  purge  the  Soviets  of  non-Bolshevists  and  then  to  federate  the 
"purified"  Soviets  into  a  Congress  which  would  faithfully 
ratify  the  decrees  of  the  Council.  By  provision  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  "Russian  Socialist  Federated  Soviet  Republic" 
the  following  categories  were  expressly  denied  the  right  to  vote 
or  to  hold  ofhce  :  "  (i)  Persons  who  employ  hired  labor  in  order 
to  obtain  an  increase  of  profits ;  (2)  Persons  who  have  an  income 
without  doing  any  work,  such  as  interest  from  capital,  receipts 
from  property,  etc.;  (3)  Private  merchants  and  commercial 
brokers  ;  (4)  Monks  and  clergy  of  all  denominations ;  (5)  Em- 
ployees and  agents  of  the  former  police,  the  gendarme  corps, 
and  the  Tsar's  secret  service,  also  members  of  the  former  reign- 
ing dynasty;  (6)  Persons  who  have  legally  been  declared  in- 
sane or  mentally  deficient,  and  also  persons  under  guardianship ; 
and  (7)  Persons  who  have  been  deprived  by  a  Soviet  of  their 
rights  of  citizenship  because  of  selfish  or  dishonorable  offenses, 
for  the  period  fixed  by  the  sentence." 

Furthermore  the  Bolshevist  Government  created  an  All- 
Russian  Extraordinary  Commission,  which  in  turn  created 
Provincial  and  District  Extraordinary  Commissions.  These 
bodies  —  the  local  not  less  than  the  national  —  were  empowered 
to  make  arrests  and  even  to  decree  and  carry  out  capital  sen- 
tences. There  was  no  appeal  from  their  decisions ;  they  were 
merely  required  to  "report  afterward."  From  this  systematic 
terrorism  only  professed  Bolsheviki  were  immune. 

Whither  the  Bolshevist  regime  in  Russia  was  tending,  what 
was  its  goal  and  what  were  its  policies,  may  perhaps  be  best 


250         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

indicated  by  reproducing  in  full  the  "Declaration  of  the  Rights 
of  the  Toiling  and  Exploited  People,"  a  document  which  Lenin 
and  Trotsky  had  prepared  and  which  was  presented  to  the 
National  Constituent  Assembly  in  January,  1918 :  ^ 

I 

"i.  Russia  is  to  be  declared  a  Republic  of  the  Workmen's, 
Soldiers',  and  Peasants'  Soviets.  All  power  in  the  cities  and  in 
the  country  belongs  to  the  Soviets. 

"2.  The  Russian  Soviet  Republic  is  based  on  the  free  federa- 
tion of  free  peoples,  on  the  federation  of  national  Soviet  republics. 

II 

"Assuming  as  its  duty  the  destruction  of  all  exploitation  of 
the  workers,  the  complete  abolition  of  the  class  system  of  society, 
and  the  placing  of  society  upon  a  socialistic  basis,  and  the  ulti- 
mate bringing  about  of  victory  for  Socialism  in  every  country, 
the  Constituent  Assembly  further  decides  : 

"i.  That  the  socialization  of  land  be  realized,  private  owner- 
ship of  land  be  abolished,  all  the  land  be  proclaimed  common 
property  of  the  people  and  turned  over  to  the  toihng  masses, 
without  compensation,  on  the  basis  of  equal  right  to  the  use  of 
land; 

"(All  forests,  and  waters  which  are  of  social  importance,  as 
well  as  all  living,  and  other  forms  of  property,  and  all  agri- 
cultural enterprises,  are  declared  national  property) ; 

"2.  To  confirm  the  decree  of  the  Soviets  concerning  the  in- 
spection of  working  conditions,  the  highest  department  of 
national  economy,  which  is  the  first  step  in  achieving  the  owner- 
ship, by  the  Soviets,  of  the  factories,  mines,  and  means  of  pro- 
duction and  transportation ; 

"3.  To  confirm  the  decree  of  the  Soviets  transferring  all  banks 
to  the  ownership  of  the  Soviet  Republic,  as  one  of  the  steps  in 
the  freeing  of  the  toiling  masses  from  the  yoke  of  capitalism ; 

"4.  To  enforce  general  compulsory  labor,  in  order  to  destroy 
the  class  parasites,  and  to  reorganize  the  economic  Hfe. 

"In  order  to  make  the  power  of  the  toiling  masses  secure  and 
to  prevent  the  restoration  of  the  rule  of  the  exploiters,  the  toil- 
ing masses  will  be  armed  and  a  Red  Guard  formed  of  workers 
and  peasants,  and  the  exploiting  classes  shall  be  disarmed. 

^  The  "Declaration"  was  rejected  by  the  Assembly  by  a  large  majority,  but  it 
was  subsequently  utilized  as  the  basis  of  the  Constitution  of  Bolshevist  Russia. 
The  document  is  in  John  Spargo,  Bolshevism  (19 19),  pp.  242  sqq. 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   "PEACE 


251 


III 

"i.  Declaring  its  firm  determination  to  make  society  free 
from  the  chaos  of  capitaHsm  and  imperialism,  which  has  drenched 
the  country  in  blood  in  the  most  criminal  war  of  all  wars,  the 
Constituent  Assembly  accepts  completely  the  policy  of  the 
Soviets,  whose  duty  it  is  to  publish  all  secret  treaties,  to  organize 
the  most  extensive  fraternization  between  the  workers  and 
peasants  of  warring  armies,  and  by  revolutionary  methods  to 
bring  about  a  democratic  peace  among  the  belligerent  nations 
without  annexations  and  indemnities,  on  the  basis  of  the  free 
self-determination  of  nations  —  at  any  price. 

"2.  For  this  purpose  the  Constituent  Assembly  declares  its 
complete  separation  from  the  brutal  policy  of  the  bourgeoisie, 
which  furthers  the  well-being  of  the  exploiters  in  a  few  selected 
nations  by  enslaving  hundreds  of  millions  of  the  toihng  peoples 
of  the  colonies  and  the  small  nations  generally. 

''The  Constituent  Assembly  accepts  the  policy  of  the  Council 
of  People's  Commissioners  in  giving  complete  independence  to 
Finland,  in  beginning  the  withdrawal  of  troops  from  Persia, 
and  in  declaring  for  Armenia  the  right  of  self-determination. 

''A  blow  at  international  financial  capital  is  the  Soviet  decree 
which  annuls  foreign  loans  made  by  the  governments  of  the 
Tsar,  the  landowners,  and  the  bourgeoisie.  The  Soviet  govern- 
ment is  to  continue  firmly  on  this  road  until  final  victory  from 
the  yoke  of  capitalism  is  won  through  international  workers' 
revolt. 

''As  the  Constituent  Assembly  was  elected  on  the  basis  of 
lists  of  candidates  nominated  before  the  November  Revolution, 
when  the  people  as  a  whole  could  not  yet  rise  against  their  ex- 
ploiters, and  did  not  know  how  powerful  would  be  the  strength 
of  the  exploiters  in  defending  their  privileges,  and  had  not  yet 
begun  to  create  a  Socialist  society,  the  Constituent  Assembly 
considers  it,  even  from  a  formal  point  of  view,  unjust  to  oppose 
the  Soviet  power.  The  Constituent  Assembly  is  of  the  opinion 
that  at  this  moment,  in  the  decisive  hour  of  the  struggle  of  the 
people  against  their  exploiters,  the  exploiters  must  not  have  a 
seat  in  any  government  organization  or  institution.  The  power 
completely  and  without  exception  belongs  to  the  people  and 
their  authorized  representatives  —  the  Workmen's,  Soldiers', 
and  Peasants'  Soviets. 

"Supporting  the  Soviet  rule  and  accepting  the  orders  of  the 
Council  of  People's  Commissioners,  the  Constituent  Assembly 


252         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

acknowledges  its  duty  to  outline  a  form  for  the  reorganization 
of  society. 

^'Striving  at  the  same  time  to  organize  a  free  and  voluntary, 
and  thereby  also  a  complete  and  strong,  union  among  the  toiling 
classes  of  all  Russian  nations,  the  Constituent  Assembly  limits 
itself  to  outHning  the  basis  of  the  federation  of  Russian  Soviet 
Republics,  leaving  to  the  people,  to  the  workers  and  soldiers,  to 
decide  for  themselves,  in  their  own  Soviet  meetings,  if  they  are 
wilHng,  and  on  what  conditions  they  prefer,  to  join  the  federated 
government  and  other  federations  of  Soviet  enterprise. 

*' These  general  principles  are  to  be  pubhshed  without  delay, 
and  the  official  representatives  of  the  Soviets  are  required  to 
read  them  at  the  opening  of  the  Constituent  Assembly." 

DEFECTION  OF  RUSSIA:   THE  TREATY  OF  BREST-LITOVSK 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  why  the  Tsar  was  deposed  and  divine- 
right  autocracy  came  to  an  end  in  Russia  in  March,  191 7,  was 
the  inability  of  the  old-regime  government,  on  account  of  its 
corruption  and  inefficiency,  to  obtain  a  mihtary  victory  over 
Germany.  A  major  reason  why  the  Provisional  Government 
was  overthrown  and  Russian  poHtical  democracy  was  transformed 
into  a  proletarian  dictatorship  of  the  Bolsheviki,  in  November, 
191 7,  was  the  inability  of  the  moderate  revolutionaries  —  Lvov 
and  Kerensky  —  to  terminate  the  war  with  a  favorable  peace. 
Behind  both  the  March  and  the  November  phases  of  the  Great 
Russian  Revolution  was  the  war  weariness  of  vast  masses  of 
the  Russian  people.  Ever  since  the  disastrous  defeats  and  re- 
treats of  191 5,  Russian  morale  had  steadily  been  declining.  In 
the  chaotic  social  and  political  conditions  of  191 7,  already 
sketched,  it  was  destroyed  utterly. 

What  the  Bolsheviki  would  do  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
Russian  Empire,  once  they  were  in  power,  was  largely  con- 
jectural. What  they  would  do  in  foreign  policy  admitted  of 
no  doubt  whatsoever.  On  the  first  day  following  his  advent  to 
the  premiership,  Lenin  telegraphed  to  all  the  belligerent  Powers, 
proposing  a  three  months'  armistice  for  the  discussion  of  peace- 
terms.  Receiving  no  formal  responses  from  the  AlHes,  Trotsky, 
the  Bolshevist  foreign  minister,  then  pubhshed  the  ''secret 
treaties"  which  had  been  made  among  the  members  of  the 
Entente  in  earlier  periods  of  the  war.  According  to  the  ''secret 
treaties"  Russia  was  to  acquire  the  Dardanelles,  Constantinople, 
the  west  shore  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  certain  defined  areas  in  Asia 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND   MAKES   "PEACE'*         253 

Minor ;  Arabia  was  to  be  placed  under  an  independent  Mussul- 
man government  ;  Russia  agreed  to  permit  France  and  Great  Brit- 
ain to  draw  the  western  boundaries  of  Germany,  and  Russia  was 
given  a  free  hand  to  delimit  the  eastern  frontiers  of  Germany; 
Italy,  in  return  for  joining  the  Entente,  was  to  receive  the 
Trentino,  southern  Tyrol,  Trieste,  Istria,  and  Dalmatia,  to 
exercise  a  protectorate  over  Albania,  to  obtain  certain  con- 
cessions in  Asia  Minor,  and  to  acquire  additional  holdings  in 
Africa  if  France  and  Great  Britain  should  increase  their  terri- 
torial possessions  there;  and  Greece,  if  she  should  join  the 
Allies,  was  to  take  part  of  Albania  and  some  Turkish  territory 
in  Asia  Minor.  Trotsky  stated  that  his  purpose  in  publishing 
these  documents  was  to  disclose  to  the  people  of  all  nations  the 
arrangements  effected  by  *' financiers  and  traders  through  their 
parliamentary  and  diplomatic  agents."  At  the  same  time  he 
warned  Germany  that  ''when  the  German  proletariat  by  means 
of  revolution  secures  access  to  their  chancelleries  they  will  find 
documents  which  will  appear  in  no  better  light." 

The  publication  of  the  secret  treaties  produced  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  Russian  pubKc  and  made  it  easier  for  the  Bol- 
shevist Government  to  open  separate  peace-negotiations  with 
the  Teutons.  Early  in  December,  Trotsky  demanded  of  the 
Allies  that  they  restate  their  war-aims  within  seven  days.  But 
the  Allies,  who  had  not  recognized  the  Bolshevist  Government 
and  who  were  now  doubly  incensed  at  it  because  it  had  published 
the  secret  treaties  and  because  it  had  already  suspended  hos- 
tilities along  the  Eastern  front  and  encouraged  the  fraterniza- 
tion of  Russian  and  German  troops,  paid  no  heed  to  Trotsky's 
ultimatum.  Whereupon,  the  Bolshevist  Government  informed 
the  Russian  people  that  the  AlHes  would  not  restate  their  aims 
because  their  aims  were  really  "imperialistic"  and  that  there- 
fore Russia  was  fully  justified  in  breaking  with  the  AlHes  and  in 
making  immediately  a  separate  peace  with  Mittel-Europa. 

Following  a  conference  at  the  army  headquarters  of  Prince 
Leopold  of  Bavaria,  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk,  attended  by  representa- 
tives of  Russia,  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  and  Bul- 
garia, an  armistice  between  these  Powers  was  signed  on  Decem- 
ber 15,  191 7,  providing  for  a  truce.  The  Germans  bound  them- 
selves not  to  transfer  troops  from  the  Eastern  to  the  Western 
Front.i 

1  This  engagement  was  not  observed  by  the  Germans.  It  should  be  noted  that 
Rumania,  left  in  the  lurch  by  the  impending  Russian  defection,  had  agreed  to  a 
truce  with  the  Central  Powers,  at  Focsani,  on  December  9. 


254        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  Peace  Conference  itself  was  formally  opened  at  Brest- 
Li  to  vsk  on  Saturday,  December  22,  191 7.  The  Central  Em- 
pires were  represented  by  their  respective  foreign  secretaries, 
Richard  von  Kuhlmann  of  Germany,  and  Count  Czernin  of 
Austria-Hungary.  Both  these  men  were  personally  incUned 
to  be  ingratiating  and  even  magnanimous,  but  Kiihlmann  was 
hopelessly  dominated  by  von  Ludendorff,  the  brusque  military 
master  of  the  Teutons,  and  Czernin  dared  not  break  with  Kiihl- 
mann. In  sharp  contrast  to  the  titled  and  pompous  dignitaries 
who  represented  the  might  of  Mittel-Europa  were  the  obscure 
envoys  of  revolutionary  Bolshevist  Russia.  The  latter  did  every- 
thing they  could  to  ruffle  the  dignity  of  the  august  assembly. 
They  frankly  disdained  diplomacy  and  utiHzed  the  occasion  for 
spreading  Socialist  propaganda. 

At  the  opening  session  of  the  Peace  Conference,  the  Russians 
made  fifteen  proposals  as  the  bases  of  permanent  peace  :  (i)  evac- 
uation of  all  Russian  territory  occupied  by  Germany,  with 
autonomy  for  Poland  and  for  the  Lithuanian  and  Lettish  prov- 
inces; (2)  autonomy  for  Turkish  Armenia;  (3)  settlement  of 
the  Alsace-Lorraine  question  by  a  free  plebiscite ;  (4)  restoration 
of  Belgium  and  indemnity  through  an  international  fund  for 
damages;  (5)  restoration  of  Serbia  and  Montenegro,  with 
similar  indemnities,  Serbia  gaining  access  to  the  Adriatic,  and 
Bosnia-Herzegovina  securing  complete  autonomy;  (6)  other 
contested  Balkan  territory  to  be  temporarily  autonomous,  pend- 
ing plebiscites ;  (7)  restoration  of  Rumania,  with  autonomy  for 
the  Dobrudja,  and  with  enforcement  of  the  Berlin  Convention 
of  1878  concerning  equaHty  of  the  Jews ;  (8)  autonomy  for  the 
Italian  population  of  Trent  and  Trieste,  pending  a  plebiscite; 
(9)  restoration  of  the  German  colonies ;  (10)  restoration  of  Persia 
and  Greece;  (11)  neutrahzation  of  all  maritime  straits  leading 
to  inland  seas,  including  the  canals  of  Suez  and  Panama,  and 
prohibition  of  the  torpedoing  of  merchant  vessels  in  time  of  war ; 
(12)  no  indemnities  to  be  paid,  and  war  requisitions  to  be  re- 
turned;   (13)  economic  boycotts  after  the  war  to  be  forbidden; 

(14)  final,  general  peace  to  be  negotiated  at  a  congress  composed 
of  delegates  chosen  by  the  representative  bodies  of  the  several 
nations,  all  secret  treaties  being  declared  null  and  void;    and 

(15)  gradual  disarmament  on  land  and  sea,  and  the  substitution 
of  militia  for  standing  armies. 

With  many  of  these  proposals  the  delegates  of  Mittel-Europa 
expressed  their  sympathy;  but  on  the  first  they  immediately 
made  a  significant  reservation.     They  were  wilHng,  they  said, 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND   MAKES  ''PEACE"         255 

to  evacuate  strictly  Russian  territory,  but  they  must  insist  on 
their  right  to  deal  separately  with  Poland,  Lithuania,  Courland, 
and  parts  of  Esthonia  and  Livonia.  In  other  words,  they  were 
resolved  to  make  such  disposition  of  conquered  portions  of  the 
Russian  Empire  as  was  pleasing  to  themselves  alone. 

It  soon  became  obvious  that  Teutonic  policy  aimed  at  de- 
taching various  lesser  nationalities  from  Russian  allegiance  and 
constituting  them  semi-autonomous  states  dependent  upon 
Mittel-Europa.  In  this  way,  the  federation  of  Mittel-Europa 
would  be  enormously  extended  eastward,  and  most  valuable 
new  resources  of  men,  metals,  and  foodstuffs  would  be  available 
to  Germany  for  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  the  Great  War 
against  the  Powers  of  Western  Europe  and  against  the  United 
States.  In  this  way,  too,  what  remained  of  Russia  could  speedily 
be  brought  politically  and  economically  into  the  orbit  of  Teu- 
tonic ambition.  It  was  a  menace  to  the  future  independence 
of  the  whole  Russian  Empire;  it  was  a  most  serious  threat, 
moreover,  against  the  Entente. 

The  disintegration  of  the  Russian  Empire  into  small  republics 
was  already  making  notable  progress,  thanks  to  the  national 
chaos  which  accompanied  and  followed  the  Bolshevist  revolution 
of  November,  191 7,  and  thanks  also  to  constant  German  propa- 
ganda which  adroitly  abetted  the  separatist  tendencies  of  the 
smaller  nationalities  within  the  Russian  Empire.  The  Rada, 
or  parliament,  of  the  Little  Russians  at  Kiev  proclaimed  the 
independence  of  the  ''Ukrainian  People's  Republic"  on  Novem- 
ber 20,  and  sent  representatives  to  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  The  same 
important  step  was  taken  by  Finland,  which  formally  declared 
its  independence  as  a  republic  on  December  4,  and  was  recognized 
by  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  as  well  as  by  the  Central 
Empires.  Lithuanian  freedom  from  Russia  was  proclaimed  on 
December  11.  The  Don  Cossacks,  representing  a  reactionary 
movement  against  the  Bolsheviki,  declared  a  separate  republic 
with  Rostov  as  its  capital  and  with  General  Paul  Kaledine  as 
first  president  and  prime-minister.  Separatist  movements  also 
developed  in  the  Baltic  Provinces  of  Courland,  Livonia,  and 
Esthonia,  in  the  Caucasus,  in  Turkestan,  among  th'e  Mussul- 
mans and  the  Tartars,  and  in  Siberia. 

Taking  advantage  of  a  suspension  of  the  Peace  Conference, 
which  had  been  voted  in  order  to  enable  the  AlHes  to  participate 
if  they  should  so  desire,  the  Bolshevist  Government  conducted 
propaganda  on  its  own  account,  with  a  view  especially  to  inciting 
the  German  people  against  the  '' imperialistic  aims"  of  the 


256        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Teutonic  diplomatists  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  In  an  official  statement, 
made  public  on  January  2,  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Soviets  declared  "that  the  Russian  Revolution  remains  faithful 
to  the  pohcy  of  internationalism.  We  defend  the  right  of  Po- 
land, Lithuania,  and  Courland  (Latvia)  to  dispose  of  their  own 
destiny  actually  and  freely.  Never  will  we  recognize  the  justice 
of  imposing  the  will  of  a  foreign  nation  on  any  other  nations 
whatsoever.  .  .  .  We  say  to  the  people  of  Germany,  Austria- 
Hungary,  Turkey,  and  Bulgaria:  'Under  your  pressure  your 
Governments  have  been  obliged  to  accept  the  motto  of  no  an- 
nexations and  no  indemnities,  but  recently  they  have  been  trying 
to  carry  on  their  old  poHcy  of  evasions.  Remember,  that  the 
conclusion  of  an  immediate  democratic  peace  will  depend  actually 
and  above  all  on  you.  All  the  people  of  Europe,  exhausted  and 
bled  by  such  a  war  as  there  never  was  before,  look  to  you  and 
expect  that  you  will  not  permit  the  Austro-German  imperialists 
to  make  war  against  revolutionary  Russia  for  the  subjection  of 
Poland,  Lithuania,  Courland,  and  Armenia ^^ 

The  Bolsheviki  were  doomed  to  double  disappointment.  On 
one  hand  they  could  not  prevail  upon  the  Allies  to  join  them  in 
peace-negotiations,  the  Entente  statesmen  contenting  them- 
selves with  renewals  of  their  solemn  protests  to  Russia  against 
a  separate  peace.  On  the  other  hand,  far  more  significant,  the 
German  people  seemed  peculiarly  impervious  to  Bolshevist 
propaganda;  the  only  occasions  on  which  the  German  people 
ever  appeared  to  doubt  the  all-wise  and  all-good  character  of 
their  Government  were  when  their  armies  met  sharp  reverses, 
and  now,  with  Russia  crumbling  into  chaos,  no  amount  of 
Russian  propaganda  could  shake  the  faith  of  the  German  masses 
in  the  providential  guidance  of  Kiihlmann  and  Czernin.  "  Kame- 
rad!"  was  shouted  by  the  Teuton  only  when  he  was  beaten; 
when  he  was  successful,  his  motto  was  "Woe  to  the  vanquished  ! " 

Consequently  when  the  Peace  Conference  was  resumed  at 
Brest-Li tovsk  on  January  10,  191 8,  the  Teutonic  envoys  cate- 
gorically refused  to  accede  to  the  Russian  suggestion  to  transfer 
the  negotiations  to  Stockholm  or  to  agree  to  the  evacuation  of 
occupied  Russian  territories.  At  the  same  time  they  protested 
vehemently  against  the  efforts  of  the  Bolshevist  leaders  to  appeal 
to  the  German  people  over  the  heads  of  the  Government's  ac- 
credited representatives.  The  result  was  an  impasse.  And  on 
January  14,  the  parleys  at  Brest-Litovsk  broke  up,  the  armistice 
having  been  extended  to  February  12,  but  the  conference  itself 
adjourning  without  fixing  a  day  for  reassembling. 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES   "PEACE"         257 

Fighting  had  already  occurred  in  Ukrainia  between  partisans 
of  the  Bolsheviki  and  those  of  the  so-called  Ukrainian  People^s 
Republic.  To  the  latter  the  Austro- Germans  now  gave  their 
moral  support.  Despite  the  protests  of  Trotsky  and  Lenin, 
negotiations  were  continued  throughout  January  between  Ger- 
many, Austria-Hungary,  Bulgaria,  and  Turkey,  on  one  side, 
and  Ukrainia,  on  the  other,  leading  finally  to  the  signature  of  a 
treaty  on  February  9,  1918,  whereby  southeastern  Russia  was 
constituted  the  free  and  independent  republic  of  Ukrainia, 
comprising  a  territory  of  about  195,000  square  miles  and  a  popu- 
lation of  about  forty-five  millions. 

On  the  following  day,  Trotsky,  the  Bolshevist  foreign  minister, 
served  notice  on  all  the  Powers  that  Russia,  though  unable  to 
sign  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Germany,  was  henceforth  definitively 
out  of  the  war.  Not  at  peace  —  not  at  war  —  such  was  the 
remarkable  import  of  the  Russian  declaration  of  February  10, 
1918: 

"The  peace  negotiations  are  at  an  end.  The  German  capital- 
ists, bankers,  and  landlords,  supported  by  the  silent  cooperation 
of  the  English  and  French  bourgeoisie,  submitted  to  our  com- 
rades, members  of  the  peace  delegations  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk,  con- 
ditions such  as  could  not  be  subscribed  to  by  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution. 

"The  Governments  of  Germany  and  Austria  are  in  possession 
of  countries  and  peoples  vanquished  by  force  of  arms.  To  this 
authority  the  Russian  people,  workmen  and  peasants,  could  not 
give  its  acquiescence.  We  could  not  sign  a  peace  which  would 
bring  with  it  sadness,  oppression,  and  suffering  to  millions  of 
workmen  and  peasants. 

"But  we  also  cannot,  will  not,  and  must  not  continue  a  war 
begun  by  tsars  and  capitalists  in  alliance  with  tsars  and  capitalists. 
We  will  not  and  we  must  not  continue  to  be  at  war  with  the  Ger- 
mans and  Austrians  —  workmen  and  peasants  like  ourselves. 

"We  are  not  signing  a  peace  of  landlords  and  capitahsts. 
Let  the  German  and  Austrian  soldiers  know  who  are  placing 
them  in  the  field  of  battle  and  let  them  know  for  what  they  are 
struggling.  Let  them  know  also  that  we  refuse  to  fight  against 
them. 

"Our  delegation,  fully  conscious  of  its  responsibility  before 
the  Russian  people  and  the  oppressed  workers  and  peasants 
of  other  countries,  declared  on  February  10,  in  the  name  of  the 
Council  of  the  People's  Commissioners  of  the  Government  of 
the  Federal  Russian  Republic  to  the  Governments  of  the  peoples 


258         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

involved  in  the  war  with  us  and  of  the  neutral  countries,  that  it 
refused  to  sign  an  annexationist  treaty.  Russia,  for  its  part, 
declares  the  present  war  with  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary, 
Turkey,  and  Bulgaria,  at  an  end. 

^'Simultaneously,  the  Russian  troops  received  an  order  for 
complete  demobilization  on  all  fronts." 

This  ''no  war,  no  peace"  declaration  of  the  Petrograd  Govern- 
ment was  received  in  Germany  with  jeers.  Obviously  the 
armistice  was  ended,  but  not  the  war.  What  the  Teuton  envoys 
had  failed  to  achieve  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk,  could  certainly  be  achieved 
by  a  spectacular  military  thrust  against  disorganized  and  de- 
mobilized Russia.  So  on  February  i8,  the  German  armies  on 
the  Eastern  Front  were  again  set  in  motion.  Rapidly  they  ad- 
vanced, capturing  within  a  fortnight  7000  Russian  officers, 
57,000  men,  5000  machine  guns,  and  enormous  quantities  of 
munitions  and  supplies.  Reval,  Dorpat,  and  Narva  were 
occupied ;  also  Pskov,  Polotzk,  and  Borissoff ;  Kiev,  the  capital 
of  Ukrainia,  was  in  German  possession,  as  was  almost  all  of 
Russia  lying  west  of  a  line  drawn  from  Narva  on  the  Gulf  of 
Finland,  seventy  miles  west  of  Petrograd,  to  south  of  Kiev. 
There  were  now  under  German  domination  the  provinces  of 
Russian  Poland,  Lithuania,  Courland,  Esthonia,  and  Livonia, 
and  a  large  part  of  Ukrainia ;  the  islands  in  the  Gulf  of  Finland 
were  later  occupied. 

On  February  24,  the  Germans,  through  Foreign  Secretary 
Kiihlmann,  announced  their  readiness  to  make  a  new  offer  of 
peace,  involving  new  and  more  drastic  terms  than  the  previous 
offer,  and  added  the  condition  that  this  offer  must  be  accepted 
within  forty-eight  hours.  Premier  Lenin,  in  urging  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  Soviets  to  accept  the  new  peace  terms, 
said,  ''Their  knees  are  on  our  chest,  and  our  position  is  hope- 
less. .  .  .  This  peace  must  be  accepted  as  a  respite  enabling 
us  to  prepare  a  decisive  resistance  to  the  bourgeoisie  and  im- 
perialists. The  proletariat  of  the  whole  world  will  come  to  our 
aid.  Then  we  shall  renew  the  fight."  The  Soviet  Committee 
accepted  the  German  terms  on  the  following  day,  by  a  vote  of 
112  to  84,  with  22  .abstentions,  and  peace  negotiations  were 
resumed  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  All  the  Russian  envoys  could  do  was 
to  protest  against  Teutonic  injustice  —  and  this  they  did  solemnly 
and  vigorously. 

The  Treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk,  signed  on  March  3,  1918,  re- 
duced the  huge  Russian  Empire  practically  to  the  size  of  the 
medieval  Grand  Duchy  of  Muscovy.     The  Bolsheviki  promised 


RUSSIA  REVOLTS  AND  MAKES  "PEACE''         259 

to  evacuate  Ukrainia,  Esthonia,  Livonia,  Finland,  and  the 
Aland  islands,  and  to  surrender  the  districts  of  Erivan,  Kars, 
and  Batum  to  the  Turks.  All  Bolshevist  propaganda  was  to 
be  discontinued  in  Mittel-Europa  and  in  the  newly  ceded  terri- 
tories. The  unfavorable  Russo-German  commercial  treaty  of 
1904  was  revived.  By  these  terms  Russia  lost  a  fourth  of  her 
population,  of  her  arable  land,  and  of  her  railway  system,  a 
third  of  her  manufacturing  industries,  and  three-fourths  of  her 
total  iron  production  and  of  her  coal-fields.  Russia  was  humbled 
in  the  dust,  but  she  was  at  ''peace." 

Rumania,  completely  isolated  by  the  collapse  and  defection 
of  Russia,  felt  obliged  to  sign  a  peace-treaty  with  the  four  Powers 
of  Mittel-Europa,  at  Bucharest,  on  March  7.  By  this  humihating 
Treaty  of  Bucharest,^  Rumania  agreed  to  give  up  all  Dobrudja, 
the  Petroseny  coal  basin,  and  the  Carpathian  passes,  and  to 
promote  Austro-German  trade  through  Moldavia  and  Bessarabia 
to  Odessa  on  the  Black  Sea.  Subsequently  the  Central  Empires 
consented  to  the  incorporation  of  Bessarabia  into  Rumania, 
which  had  been  voted  by  a  Bessarabian  council  on  March  27. 

On  March  7,  a  peace- treaty  was  concluded  between  Finland 
and  Germany,  whereby  the  latter  recognized  the  independence 
of  the  former. 2  A  week  later  the  German  landlords  of  Cour- 
land,  meeting  at  Mittau,  were  inspired  to  petition  for  a  union 
of  the  "freed"  Baltic  Provinces  under  the  crown  of  the  "House 
of  Hohenzollern " ;  and  the  emotional  William  II,  stirred  to 
his  very  heart-depths,  wired  "  God's  blessing  on  your  land,  upon 
which  German  fidelity,  German  courage,  and  German  perse- 
verance have  made  their  impress."  Everything  seemed  to  be 
progressing  as  auspiciously  for  Germany  as  unhappily  for  Russia. 
Intrigues  were  being  steadily  prosecuted  to  secure  scions  of 
princely  German  families  as  popular  candidates  for  the  new 
thrones  which  had  been  rendered  desirable  and  needful  by  Teu- 
tonic military  prowess  in  the  East  —  in  Finland,  in  the  Baltic 
Provinces,  in  Lithuania,  in  Ukrainia,  and  in  Poland.  What  a 
mighty  Mittel-Europa  was  in  process  of  construction !  Against 
the  treaties  of  Brest-Litovsk  and  Bucharest,  the  Governments 
of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy  formally  protested  on  March 
18, 1918. 

The  defection  of  Russia  from  the  cause  of  the  democratic 

^  This  treaty  was  ratified  by  the  German  Bundesrat  on  June  4,  by  the  Rumanian 
Chamber  on  June  28,  and  by  the  Rumanian  Senate  on  July  4. 

2  A  treaty  of  amity  between  the  "  Finnish  Social  Republic  of  Workmen  "  and 
the  "Russian  Federal  Soviet  Republic"  had  been  signed  on  March  i,  1918.  Peace 
between  Finland  and  Austria-Hungary  was  concluded  at  Vienna  on  May  29. 


26o        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Entente  Allies  should  not  be  blamed  upon  the  Revolution  or 
even  upon  the  mischievous  and  short-sighted  Bolsheviki  so  much 
as  upon  the  old  tsardom  whose  tyranny  and  corruption  had 
made  revolution  necessary  and  temporary  excessive  radicalism 
natural.  For  the  time  being,  the  defection  of  Russia  was  cer- 
tainly a  source  of  bitter  disappointment  to  France,  Great  Britain, 
Italy,  and  the  United  States;  and  the  formal  repudiation  of 
the  Russian  foreign  debt  in  February,  191 8,  served  to  accentuate 
the  bitterness  felt  in  Alhed  countries.  Yet  the  Russians  them- 
selves were  doomed  to  suffer  more  and  worse  from  the  Bolshevist 
regime  than  were  any  foreign  peoples.  And,  as  events  were  to 
prove,  entry  of  the  United  States  into  the  Great  War  in  191 7 
was  ample  compensation  to  the  Allies  for  the  disintegration  and 
defection  of  Russia. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  ALLIES  PAVE  THE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY 
ALLIED   PLANS  AND   PROSPECTS  IN   1917 

The  Great  War  entered  a  peculiarly  critical  stage  in  191 7. 
In  the  preceding  year  the  Teutons  and  the  Allies  had  failed  in 
turn  to  obtain  military  decisions.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Allies 
had  been  unable  to  recover  any  appreciable  portion  of  territories 
formerly  lost  to  them  or  to  prevent  the  humiliation  and  subjuga- 
tion of  Rumania.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Teutons  had  failed 
to  capture  Verdun  or  Vicenza,  or  to  weaken  the  hostile  resolu- 
tion of  any  of  the  Great  Powers  arrayed  against  them.  It  was 
obvious  that  the  Great  War  was  a  tremendous  endurance-test; 
and,  as  had  been  pointed  out  repeatedly,  such  an  endurance- 
test  was  less  promising,  in  the  long  run,  to  the  Teutons  than  to 
the  Allies. 

Early  in  191 7,  however,  the  resumption  of  unrestricted  subma- 
rine warfare  by  Germany  and  the  resulting  entrance  of  the 
United  States  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  served  to 
emphasize  one  aspect  of  the  endurance-test  to  the  exclusion  of 
others.  The  question  then  was  whether  the  United  States 
Government,  in  the  face  of  the  threat  of  the  wholesale  destruc- 
tion and  paralysis  of  Allied  shipping  by  German  submarines, 
would  and  could  transport  sufficient  troops  and  supplies  to 
Europe  to  tip  the  balance  of  mihtary  power  in  favor  of  the  En- 
tente. As  we  have  already  seen,  this  question  was  in  a  fair 
way  toward  an  answer  by  the  second  half  of  191 7:  ruthless 
submarine  warfare,  though  terribly  destructive  in  the  first 
half  of  the  year  and  still  menacing,  was  now  distinctly  on  the 
decline;  American  foodstuffs,  munitions,  and  other  materiel 
were  flowing  in  streams  to  Britain,  France,  and  Italy;  and  it 
was  apparent  that  a  large  American  Expeditionary  Force, 
well  trained  and  well  equipped,  would  be  ready  to  take  the  field 
in  1 9 18  alongside  the  seasoned  veterans  of  the  Allies.  The 
unrestricted  submarine  warfare  of  the  Germans  was  not  accom- 
plishing its  purpose,  and  this  aspect  of  the  great  endurance- 

261 


262         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

test  between  the  Allies  and  the  Central  Empires  was  becoming 
monthly  more  favorable  to  the  former  and  less  advantageous 
to  the  latter.  If  only  Russia  could  continue  to  press  against 
the  extended  Austro-German  lines  from  the  Sereth  to  the  Baltic, 
while  the  French  and  British  forced  offensives  on  the  Western 
Front,  and  the  ItaKans  on  the  Isonzo  and  the  Carso,  and  General 
Sarrail's  motley  hosts  in  Macedonia,  it  would  be  but  a  question 
of  time  when  MiUel-Europa  must  break  and  crumble. 

But  the  situation  in  191 7  was  not  so  simple.  For  at  the  very 
time  when  the  Great  War  appeared  to  assume  the  character  of 
a  speed-contest  between  German  preparations  for  ruthless  war- 
fare on  the  high  seas  and  American  preparations  for  large-scale 
campaigning  on  the  Continent  of  Europe,  one  of  the  Great 
Entente  Powers  —  Russia  —  began  to  revolt  and  to  upset  many 
AlHed  calculations.  The  Russian  Revolution  introduced  a 
new  and  important  element  of  uncertainty  into  the  endurance- 
test  which  the  Great  War  had  become. 

In  its  earliest  phases  the  Russian  Revolution  seemed  to  be  an 
asset  to  the  Allied  cause.  The  destruction  of  autocracy  in  Russia 
was  acclaimed  in  Paris,  in  London,  in  Rome,  and  in  Washington, 
as  putting  an  end  once  for  all  to  dangerous  intrigues  between 
the  courts  of  Petrograd  and  Berlin,  as  removing  a  too  well-merited 
reproach  of  Teutonic  sympathizers  and  apologists,  and  as  com- 
pleting the  alignment  of  democratic  nations  against  the  oligarchial 
and  militaristic  states  of  Mittel-Europa.  Thereby  the  political 
stakes  of  the  Great  War  were  clarified  and  point  was  given  to 
President  Wilson's  celebrated  phrase  that  the  aim  of  the  Allies 
was  ''to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy." 

If  any  confirmation  were  needed  of  the  new  democratic  enthu- 
siasm which  overspread  all  the  Entente  Powers,  it  was  provided 
by  a  radical  electoral  reform  in  Great  Britain,  the  bill  for  which, 
introduced  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  May  15,  191 7,  and 
passed  in  December,  provided  for  the  equal,  direct  suffrage  of 
all  adult  males  and  of  most  adult  females.  Great  Britain  not 
only  was  adopting  thoroughgoing  democracy  in  the  old  sense 
but  was  playing  the  role  of  pioneer  among  the  Great  Powers  of 
the  world  in  the  grant  of  the  parliamentary  franchise  to  women. 
Moreover,  Lloyd  George,  the  British  premier,  announced  in 
May,  191 7,  that  his  Government  was  prepared  to  recognize  the 
national  aspirations  of  Ireland  by-  offering  to  the  Irish  people  a 
choice  between  the  acceptance  of  immediate  home  rule  for  all 
parts  of  the  island,  except  the  six  counties  of  Ulster,  and  the 
convocation  of  a  constituent  assembly  which  should  represent 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     263 

all  factions  and  all  faiths.  The  Irish  Nationalists  chose  the 
latter;  and  from  July  to  December,  191 7,  an  Irish  Conven- 
tion was  in  session  endeavoring  to  draft  a  constitution  for  the 
country.^ 

High  hopes  were  aroused  in  the  Entente  countries  that  the 
Russian  Revolution  would  occasion  serious  internal  disorders 
in  the  Central  Empires.  And  events  in  the  spring  and  summer 
of  191 7  did  not  altogether  belie  these  hopes.  Austria-Hungary 
was  already  in  ferment,  and  the  democratic  and  nationalistic 
revolutions  elsewhere  brought  into  bold  relief  the  glaring  political 
inequahties  in  the  Dual  Monarchy.  In  Austria  itself,  it  should 
be  remembered,  some  ten  milHon  Germans  dominated  some 
eighteen  million  Slavs  — •  Czechs,  Poles,  Ruthenians  (Ukrainians), 
and  Jugoslavs  (Slovenes,  Croats,  and  Serbs),  —  while  in  Hun- 
gary some  ten  million  Magyars  tyrannized  over  some  ten  million 
Rumans,  Slovaks,  and  Jugoslavs.  Only  the  Germans  of  Austria 
and  the  Magyars  of  Hungary  accepted  loyally  the  Prussian 
hegemony  in  Mittel-Europa,  and  these  dominant  minority  ele- 
ments encountered  ever  greater  difficulties  in  dealing  with  the 
majority  nationalities  subject  to  them.  There  were  frequent 
conspiracies  and  executions  of  civilians,  and  mutinies  of  troops. 
The  Czechs  of  Austria  and  the  Slovaks  of  Hungary  —  consti- 
tuting in  reality  the  single  Czechoslovak  nationality  —  were 
on  the  verge  of  armed  rebellion.  The  Slovenes,  Croats,  and 
Serbs  were  becoming  more  conscious  of  their  community  of 
race  and  interest  with  the  peoples  of  Serbia  and  Montenegro 
and  were  agitating  in  favor  of  separation  from  Austria  and 
Hungary  and  creation  of  an  autonomous  Jugoslavia.  The 
Rumans  of  Hungarian  Transylvania  were  advocating  union 
with  the  kingdom  of  Rumania,  and  the  Poles  of  Austrian  Gahcia 
were  demanding  union  with  a  free  and  independent  Poland. 
The  Ruthenians  of  eastern  Gahcia,  affected  by  the  estabHshment 
of  an  autonomous  Ukrainia  by  their  kinsfolk  in  Russia,  were 
hostile  alike  to  the  Poles  and  to  the  German  Austrians.  The 
hodge-podge  of  nationalities  within  the  Dual  Monarchy  raised 
problems  perplexing  enough  at  any  time,  but  now,  in  the  face 
of  the  Russian  Revolution,  doubly  perplexing. 

The  Emperor  Charles,  who  had  succeeded  the  aged  Francis 
Joseph  in  November,  191 6,  was  reputed  to  be  sincerely  desirous 
of  undertaking  a  radical  reformation  of  his  ramshackle  domin- 
ions.    It  was  gossiped  that  he  planned  to  transform  the  Dual 

^  The  Report  of  the  Irish  Convention  was  published  in  April,  191 8,  but  was  not 
acted  upon  by  the  British  Government.     See  below,  pp.  310-312. 


264        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Monarchy  into  a  Quintuple  Monarchy  of  which  the  constituent 
states  would  be  Austria,  Hungary,  Jugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia, 
and  Poland.  At  any  rate  he  had  intrusted  the  important  posts 
of  Austrian  premier  ^  and  minister  of  foreign  affairs  in  December, 
19 1 6,  respectively  to  Count  Clam-Martini tz  and  to  Count 
Ottokar  Czernin,  two  Germanized  Czechs,  who  intrigued  deli- 
cately and  spoke  many  fair  words.  But  the  task  was  too  ardu- 
ous for  Czernin,  Clam-Mar tinitz,  or  Charles.  Any  concession 
to  Czechs  or  Poles  angered  the  Germans,  and  any  strengthening 
of  the  dominant  position  of  the  Germans  exasperated  the  sub- 
ject nationalities. 

So  long  as  an  overwhelming  majority  of  Austrian  subjects 
were  bitterly  hostile  to  the  existing  poUtical  regime,  democracy 
could  exist  in  Austria  only  in  name ;  and  it  was  a  notorious  fact 
that  the  Austrian  parliament  —  the  Reichsrat  —  had  not  been 
convoked  since  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  in  July,  19 14. 
Now,  however,  after  the  Russian  Revolution,  the  Emperor  and 
his  ministers  had  to  prove  at  home  and  abroad  that  Austria 
was  democratic  in  fact  as  well  as  in  theory ;  and  thus  it  happened 
that  the  Reichsrat,  after  a  vacation  of  three  years,  was  convened 
in  Vienna  in  May,  191 7.  No  sooner  had  the  Reichsrat  met 
than  the  Czech  and  the  Jugoslav  deputies  demanded  the  abohtion 
of  the  dual  system  and  the  grant  of  independence  and  unity 
to  their  respective  nations.  Unable  to  coerce  or  cajole  these 
deputies,  Clam-Martinitz  turned  his  attention  to  the  Poles. 
If  the  Polish  deputies  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  support  him, 
they  with  the  German  Austrians  would  constitute  a  majority 
of  the  Reichsrat  capable  of  demonstrating  the  regularity  and 
orderliness  of  democratic  government  in  Austria.  But  the 
Poles  claimed  more  favors  than  Clam-Martinitz  could  grant 
and  still  retain  the  confidence  of  the  German  Austrians.  To 
the  Polish  demand  for  a  united,  independent  Poland,  including 
Galicia  and  access  to  the  Baltic,  Clam-Martinitz  ventured  to 
give  only  rambling  and  non-committal  answers;  and  on  June 
16,  191 7,  the  Polish  deputies  resolved  to  join  the  Czechs  and 
Jugoslavs  in  voting  against  the  budget.  At  the  same  time  the 
National  Council  of  the  Czechs  prepared  and  issued  a  formal 
indictment  of  the  Habsburg  Monarchy,  accusing  it  of  having 
brought  on  the  war  without  the  consent  of  the  Czech  deputies 

^  The  Austrian  premier  since  191 1,  Count  Karl  Stiirgkh,  had  been  assassinated 
on  October  21,  1916,  by  a  Socialist  editor.  From  October  to  December,  a 
stop-gap  ministry  had  been  presided  over  by  Ernst  von  Koerber,  a  zealous  Pan- 
German,  who  had  been  finance  minister  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  since  February, 
1915- 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     265 

or  of  the  Czech  nation,  of  having  shot  Czech  soldiers  in  masses, 
interned  hundreds  of  Czech  civihans,  and  condemned  Czech 
deputies  to  death  or  imprisonment,  of  having  suppressed  or 
gagged  the  Czech  press,  of  having  involved  the  Czech  communi- 
ties in  ruin,  and  of  having  *' spent  more  than  sixty  billions  on  a 
criminal  war."  Furthermore,  on  July  20,  191 7,  the  head  of  the 
Jugoslav  party,  Dr.  Anton  Trumbitch,  signed  with  Nikola 
Pashitch,  the  premier  of  Serbia,  the  famous  Declaration  of 
Corfu,  whereby  it  was  agreed  to  constitute  an  independent, 
unified  state  of  the  five  million  Serbs  of  Serbia  and  Montenegro 
and  the  seven  million  Jugoslav  (Serb,  Croat,  and  Slovene) 
subjects  of  Austria-Hungary ;  in  the  proposed  state  all  reHgions 
would  be  on  an  equal  footing,  the  Gregorian  calendar  would  be 
adopted,  and  suffrage  would  be  universal,  secret,  equal,  and 
direct. 

Uncomfortably  oppressed  by  the  sensation  of  an  ominous 
rumbling  that  might  betoken  the  nearness  of  earthquake  and 
volcanic  eruptions.  Count  Clam-Mar tinitz  retired  from  the 
Austrian  premiership  late  in  June  as  gracefully  as  the  circum- 
stances would  warrant.  Dr.  von  Seidler,  a  typical  bureaucrat, 
then  formed  a  stop-gap  ministry,  dissolved  the  Reichsrat,  and 
awaited  developments. 

Superficially  the  situation  in  Hungary  was  less  critical.  Count 
Tisza,  who  had  been  in  office  since  1913  and  had  had  a  hand  in 
precipitating  the  Great  War,  was  forced  out  of  the  premiership, 
it  is  true,  in  May,  191 7,  but  he  was  forced  out  by  fellow-Magyar 
aristocrats  rather  than  by  non-Magyar  nationalists.  And 
so  accustomed  to  domination  were  the  titled  Magyars  that  they 
experienced  no  serious  difficulty  in  refusing  popular  demands 
for  much-needed  constitutional  reform  and  in  exalting  one  of 
their  own  number.  Count  Julius  Andrassy,  to  succeed  Count 
Tisza. 

Nevertheless,  below  the  surface,  there  was  seething  discontent 
in  Hungary.  And  Austria,  as  we  have  seen,  was  on  the  verge 
of  revolution.  Instinctively  the  Emperor  Charles  and  Count 
Czernin,  his  suave  foreign  minister,  felt  that  the  Dual  Monarchy 
could  be  saved  and  its  complicated  nationalistic  problems  safely 
dealt  with,  not  by  indefinite  prolongation  of  the  war,  but  by 
speedy  conclusion  of  peace.  The  result  was  that  throughout 
the  spring  and  summer  of  191 7  Czernin  and  Charles  were  intrigu- 
ing with  the  AlHes,  especially  with  France,  for  the  termination 
of  the  war.  Charles  went  so  far  as  to  state  to  the  French  Gov- 
ernment   through    a    confidential    intermediary,  —  his    cousin, 


266         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Prince  Sixtus  of  Bourbon,  —  that  Austria-Hungary  would  sup- 
port ''France's  just  claim  relative  to  Alsace-Lorraine."^ 

That  Austria-Hungary  was  longing  ardently  for  peace  and  was 
weakening  in  her  attachment  to  Germany  was  no  secret  in  the 
midsummer  of  191 7.  And  so  long  as  there  was  open  to  the  AlHes 
the  prospect  of  detaching  the  Dual  Monarchy  from  Mittel- 
Europa,  British  and  French  diplomatists  evinced  a  remarkable 
charity  and  kindliness  toward  the  Habsburg  Estate.  The 
United  States,  though  at  war  with  Germany  since  April,  191 7, 
did  not  declare  war  against  Austria-Hungary  until  the  following 
December. 

The  Russian  Revolution  occasioned  political  crises  not  only 
in  Austria-Hungary,  but  also  in  Germany ;  and  any  event  which 
divided  German  counsels  and  weakened  German  morale  was  of 
obvious  advantage  to  the  Allies,  for  Germany  was  the  brain  and 
sinew  of  Mittel-Europa,  In  January,  191 7,  before  the  upheaval 
in  Russia,  the  German  Chancellor,  Bethmann-Hollweg,  had 
seemingly  won  the  enthusiastic  approbation  of  the  bulk  of  the 
German  people  in  espousing  the  Pan- German  policy  of  ruth- 
less submarine  warfare.  But  as  time  went  on  and  the  Russian 
Colossus  was  perceived  to  have  feet  of  clay  and  the  submarine 
warfare  did  not  bring  a  speedy  suit  for  peace  from  the  AlHes,  a 
growing  reaction  against  Bethmann-Hollweg  and  his  Govern- 
ment was  observable  in  Germany.  With  the  Great  War  about 
to  enter  upon  its  fourth  year,  even  the  most  miHtaristic  nation 
could  not  wholly  escape  the  general  war  weariness  which  affected 
all  the  other  belHgerents.  In  particular,  there  were  pohtical 
groups  in  Germany,  such  as  the  Socialists,  the  CathoHc  Centrists, 
the  Radicals  (Progressives),  and  the  Poles,  which  had  always 
been  by  tradition  and  circumstance  hostile  to  the  imperial  regime, 
and  which,  though  supporting  the  Emperor  and  his  Chancellor 
so  long  as  autocratic  Russia  made  common  cause  with  democratic 
France  in  arms  against  the  integrity  of  the  Fatherland,  were 
now  prepared  to  quaKfy  their  support. 

These  Moderates  in  Germany  were  affected  not  only  by  the 
Russian  Revolution  directly,  which  removed  an  important  part 
of  the  ''Slavic  Peril,"  but  also  by  the  papal  appeals  for  peace, 
by  the  troubles  and  tribulations  then  brewing  in  Austria-Hun- 
gary, by  the  eloquent  appeals  of  President  Wilson  to  the  German 
people  against  the  German  autocracy,  and  by  the  plain  talking 

^  The  exposure  of  this  Austrian  duplicity  in  April,  19 18,  led  to  the  resignation 
of  Count  Czernin,  and  to  the  restoration  of  Baron  Burian  to  the  Austro-Hungarian 
ministry  of  foreign  afifairs,  which  had  been  held  by  him  from  January,  1915,  to 
December,  19 16. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     267 

of  foreign  Socialists  to  Scheidemann  and  other  German  Socialist 
leaders  at  an  international  conference  in  Stockholm  in  June. 
In  vain  did  Bethmann-Hollweg  endeavor  to  conciHate  the  Cen- 
trists and  Poles  by  securing  the  repeal  of  the  law  against  the 
Jesuits  and  of  the  law  forbidding  the  use  of  any  language  other 
than  German  at  pubHc  meetings.  Such  liberal  sops  did  not 
satisfy  the  real  hunger  of  German  liberals. 

On  July  6,  191 7,  a  serious  crisis  was  precipitated  in  Germany 
by  Mathias  Erzberger,  a  conspicuous  leader  of  the  left  wing  of 
the  Catholic  Center  Party,  who  in  a  speech  before  the  Main 
Committee  of  the  Reichstag  assailed  the  Government  with  the 
utmost  candor  and  vehemence,  criticising  the  conduct  of  the  war, 
especially  the  use  of  the  submarines,  and  demanding  radical 
reforms  in  both  domestic  and  foreign  poHcy  and  a  declaration 
in  favor  of  peace  according  to  the  formula  of  revolutionary  Russia 
—  without  annexations  or  indemnities.  Straightway  the  Cen- 
trists, Sociahsts,  Radicals,  and  a  sprinkling  of  National  Liberals 
formed  an  an ti- Government  hloc,  comprising  a  large  majority 
of  the  total  membership  of  the  Reichstag  and  pledged  to  uphold 
democratic  amendment  of  the  Prussian  Constitution,  introduc- 
tion of  parliamentary  government  in  the  Empire,  and  a  declara- 
tion of  war  aims  on  lines  laid  down  by  Erzberger. 

To  accept  the  demands  of  the  new  hloc  meant  the  alienation 
of  all  the  Conservatives  and  of  a  majority  of  the  National  Liberals 
from  the  Government,  and  this  meant  a  signal  reverse  for  the 
war  party  and  perhaps  an  open  confession  of  national  defeat. 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  who  had  been  chancellor  continuously 
since  1909  and  as  such  had  played  a  most  significant  part  in 
preparing  for  the  present  war,  in  precipitating  it,  and  in  assum- 
ing responsibility  for  its  conduct,  could  not  bring  himself  to 
cooperate  with  the  hloc;  after  a  week's  disorder  in  the  Reichstag, 
Emperor  Wilham  II  received  and  accepted,  on  July  14,  191 7, 
the  resignation  of  Bethmann-Hollweg. 

Five  days  later  the  unruly  Reichstag,  against  the  strenuous 
protests  of  Tirpitz,  Reventlow,  and  all  other  fiery  pan-Germans, 
passed  by  a  majority  of  more  than  one  hundred  a  remarkable 
peace  resolution,  that  the  object  of  the  war  was  solely  to  defend 
the  liberty,  independence,  and  territorial  integrity  of  Germany, 
that  the  Reichstag  championed  peace  and  understanding  between 
the  belligerents,  and  that  annexations  and  political  and  economic 
oppression  were  contrary  to  such  a  peace.  Thereby  did  a  large 
majority  of  the  duly  elected  representatives  of  the  German 
nation  put  themselves  squarely  on  record  as  opposed  to  the 


268         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

war  aims  of  the  Kaiser,  the  militarists,  the  Junkers,  and  the 
industrial  magnates. 

So  used  was  the  Reichstag,  however,  to  limiting  itself  to 
words,  that  in  this  crisis  it  had  no  single  opinion  as  to  what 
legal  methods  it  should  employ  to  give  effect  to  its  resolution 
and  no  courage  to  transcend  the  constitution  and  proclaim  a 
revolution.  Fearful  of  their  own  vocal  audacity,  the  leaders  of 
the  hloc  hesitated  to  invoke  violence,  and  in  hesitating  they  were 
lost.  The  Emperor  took  no  notice  of  the  peace  resolution  and 
calmly  ignored  the  Reichstag  in  appointing  Dr.  George  Michaelis 
as  successor  to  Bethmann-Hollweg. 

Michaelis  was  a  typical  Prussian  bureaucrat,  sixty  years  old, 
docile,  and  safe,  of  Conservative  sentiments  and  sympathies, 
who  was  known  to  the  public  almost  exclusively  by  his  recent 
record  as  a  fairly  competent  Food  Administrator.  Under  Chan- 
cellor Michaelis,  Helfferich  became  vice  chancellor  and  minister 
of  the  interior,  and  Kiihlmann  succeeded  Zimmermann  as  foreign 
minister.  Michaelis  was  no  intellectual  giant,  but  he  was  clever 
enough  to  befool  the  credulous  hloc  leaders  in  the  Reichstag. 
He  declared  himself  ready  to  accept  the  peace  resolution  of 
July  19,  "as  he  understood  it,"  announced  that  he  would  take 
matters  of  political  reform  ''under  consideration,"  and  sent  the 
Reichstag  home  with  a  benediction. 

Throughout  August  and  September,  Michaelis  with  the  aid  of 
the  more  adroit  Kiihlmann  continued  openly  to  profess  his  love 
for  peace  while  stealthily  he  abetted  the  propaganda  actively 
conducted  by  Pan- Germans  in  favor  of  the  repudiation  of  the 
Reichstag's  peace  resolution.  It  was  hard  for  Michaelis,  bungler 
as  he  was,  to  labor  for  a  German  victory  through  peace,  when 
the  simpler  and  more  straightforward  Conservatives  could  only 
think  of  peace  through  a  German  victory.  When,  in  October, 
the  Reichstag  reassembled,  it  was  in  an  electrical  atmosphere. 
The  submarine  warfare  was  failing.  There  were  grave  disorders, 
even  mutinies,  in  the  fleet.  The  Independent  SociaHsts  were 
growing  more  troublesome.  The  Conservatives  and  National 
Liberals  were  annoyed  that  the  Chancellor  did  not  break  com- 
pletely with  the  Reichstag.  The  Centrists,  Socialists,  and 
Radicals  were  furious  that  the  Chancellor  should  give  only  lip- 
service  to  their  program  of  reform  and  their  declaration  of 
war  aims. 

Delay  on  the  part  of  the  Reichstag  in  voting  war  credits  and 
attacks  of  the  hloc  leaders  upon  the  Chancellor  for  his  blunders 
and  shiftiness  were  sufficient  to  precipitate  a  second  political 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     269 

crisis  in  Germany.  On  October  21,  1917,  Michaelis  resigned; 
and  ten  days  later  —  the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
posting  of  Luther's  theses  upon  the  church-door  at  Wittenberg 
—  the  Emperor  designated  as  chancellor  and  minister-president 
of  Prussia  the  Catholic  leader  Count  Hertling.  Count  Hertling, 
a  Bavarian  by  birth  and  latterly  premier  of  his  native  state, 
had  spent  most  of  his  seventy-four  years  as  professor  at  Bonn ; 
he  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  Center  Party,  a  devout 
Catholic,  a  profound  student  of  philosophy,  and  a  skillful  parlia- 
mentarian. His  advent  to  the  highest  civil  office  in  the  Empire 
and  in  Prussia  was  hailed  at  first  as  a  signal  triumph  for  the 
Reichstag  bloc  and  as  a  happy  augury  of  a  democratic  reaction 
in  Germany  against  militaristic  autocracy.  Hertling's  pro- 
gram, elaborated  in  conference  with  the  party  leaders  in  the 
Reichstag,  included  promises  to  carry  out  sweeping  electoral 
reforms  in  Prussia,  to  abolish  or  relax  the  political  censorship 
and  the  state  of  siege,  and  to  direct  peace  negotiations  in  har- 
mony with  the  resolution  of  July. 

Only  a  week  after  Hertling's  elevation  to  a  leading  position 
in  Germany  occurred  the  Bolshevist  Revolution  in  Russia  (No- 
vember 7,  191 7),  which  definitely  deprived  the  Entente  of  one 
of  its  most  important  members  and  at  the  same  time  put  a  stop, 
at  least  temporarily,  to  the  popular  unrest  and  disquiet  in  Ger- 
many and  in  Austria-Hungary.  The  Allies  soon  received  full 
confirmation  of  their  fears  that  the  Russian  Revolution,  as  it 
progressed,  was  becoming  a  liability,  rather  than  an  asset,  to 
their  cause.  Bolshevist  Russia  was  concluding  first  an  armistice 
and  then  a  separate  peace  with  the  Central  Empires.  Rumania, 
left  isolated  and  defenseless,  was  obliged  to  surrender.  The 
Teutons  were  organizing  a  series  of  dependent  states  out  of  the 
wreckage  in  eastern  Europe  —  a  Finland,  a  Lettland  (Latvia), 
a  Lithuania,  a  Poland,  and  a  Ukrainia.  On  all  of  these  states 
as  well  as  on  what  remained  of  Russia,  Mittel-Europa  was 
strengthening  her  political  and  economic  hold.  She  was  prepar- 
ing to  draw  from  them  vast  stores  of  foodstuffs  and  war  materiel. 
She  would  be  able  before  long  to  do  away  entirely  with  her 
Eastern  Front  and  to  bring  all  her  fighting  strength  to  bear 
on  France,  on  Italy,  and  on  Salonica.  No  wonder  that  Dr. 
Seidler,  the  Austrian  premier  who  had  taken  office  in  June  in 
fear  and  trembling,  breathed  quite  easily  in  December.  No 
wonder  that  Count  Hertling,  the  German  Chancellor  who  had 
appeared  in  October  as  a  harbinger  of  democracy  and  early 
peace,  was  transformed  by  the  rapid  course  of  events  into  an 


270         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

exponent  of  domestic  conservation  and  foreign  annexation.  The 
immediate  prospects  of  Mittel-Europa  were  too  alluring  to  a 
Seidler  and  a  Hertling.  They  were  compelling  to  a  Czernin 
and  a  Kiihlmann.  They  were  satisfying  even  to  the  Teutonic 
military  chieftains  —  to  Hindenburg,  Ludendorff ,  and  Mack- 
ensen.  The  sceptical  Emperor  Charles  was  silenced,  and  the 
grandiloquent  Emperor  William  burst  forth  in  hysterical  paeans 
to  the  Almighty. 

Still  the  Allies  had  no  reason  to  despair  of  ultimate  victory. 
With  the  Russian  autocracy  gone,  their  cause  was  now  unques- 
tionably the  cause  of  democracy  and  civilization,  and  as  such 
it  had  a  popular  appeal  infinitely  more  enthusiastic  than  that 
of  Mittel-Europa.  Even  with  the  defection  of  all  Russia  from 
the  alliance  of  free  nations,  the  Entente  was  superior  to  the 
Central  Empires  in  man-power  and  in  munitions  and  supplies 
Besides,  the  political  and  economic  conditions  in  Bolshevist 
Russia  were  so  chaotic  that  the  Teutons  could  not  hope  to  organ- 
ize and  utilize  its  natural  resources  in  the  near  future ;  and  in 
the  meantime  the  full  strength  of  the  United  States  would  be 
available  to  the  Allies.  Moreover,  the  dependent  states  on  which 
the  Teutons  had  counted  for  grateful  and  timely  assistance 
soon  displayed  signs  of  putting  their  own  welfare  above  that  of 
Mittel-Europa,  and  some  of  them,  notably  Poland  and  Ukrainia, 
fell  to  quarreling  violently  with  each  other,  to  the  scandal  and 
chagrin  of  Vienna  and  Berlin.  At  the  worst  for  the  Allies,  the 
Russian  Revolution  merely  injected  a  new  element  into  the 
endurance-test  which  the  Great  War  had  become ;  it  simply 
postponed  the  ultimate  victory  of  the  Allies. 

Less  and  less  throughout  the  year  191 7  did  the  purpose  of  the 
Allies  appear  to  be  merely  the  chastisement  of  Germany  and 
the  parceling  out  of  conquered  territories ;  more  and  more  it 
became  the  fashioning  of  a  league  of  free  nations  which  should 
preserve  a  peace  of  justice  and  put  an  end  to  anarchy  —  to  the 
rule  of  force  —  in  international  relations.  More  and  more  the 
whole  world  awoke  to  an  understanding  of  the  real  stakes  of  the 
Great  War,  and  nation  after  nation  entered  the  struggle  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies.  The  four  Powers  of  Mittel-Europa  —  Ger- 
many, Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  and  Bulgaria  —  remained 
alone  in  191 7  as  they  had  in  191 5.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Entente,  though  suffering  the  defection  of  Russia  and  of  Rumania 
in  191 7,  could  now  count  not  only  upon  the  former  members  — 
France,  Great  Britain,  Italy,  Japan,  Belgium,  Serbia,  Monte- 
negro, and  Portugal,  —  but  also  upon  a  considerable  number 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     271 

of  fresh  associates.  The  United  States  joined  the  Allies  in  April, 
speedily  followed  by  Cuba  and  Panama.  China  severed  diplo- 
matic relations  with  Germany  on  March  14;  and  then  after 
the  suppression  of  a  royalist  uprising,  the  reconstructed  republi- 
can government  under  President  Feng  Kwo-Cheng  declared 
war  on  the  Central  Empires  on  August  14.  Brazil,  after  sever- 
ing diplomatic  relations  in  April,  formally  went  to  war  with 
Germany  on  October  26.  Siam  declared  war  on  the  Central 
Empires  on  July  22.  Liberia  declared  war  on  Germany  on 
August  4.  Greece,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  section  of  this 
chapter,  united  with  the  Allies  on  July  2. 

Several  states  showed  clearly  their  sympathies  in  the  struggle 
by  severing  diplomatic  relations  with  Germany,  though  they 
did  not  formally  declare  war.  Such  were  Bolivia,  Costa  Rica, 
Ecuador,  Guatemala,  Haiti,  Honduras,  Nicaragua,  Peru,  Santo 
Domingo,  and  Uruguay.^  Feeling  ran  high  in  Argentina  against 
the  German  submarine  ruthlessness,  especially  when  it  became 
known  that  Count  Luxburg,  the  German  charge  at  Buenos 
Aires,  had  telegraphed  his  government  in  May  that  if  Argentine 
vessels  were  destroyed,  it  should  be  done  '' without  a  trace  being 
left"  C'spurlosversenkt") ;  and  only  a  profuse  apology  from  Ger- 
many and  a  formal  promise  not  to  sink  any  more  Argentine 
ships,  together  with  an  unpopular  insistence  on  the  part  of  the 
Argentine  president,  kept  Argentina  out  of  the  war.  Altogether, 
at  the  close  of  19 18,  approximately  half  the  sovereign  states  of 
the  world  (and  these  by  far  the  richest  and  most  populous) 
were  banded  together  in  a  sort  of  league  against  the  four  Powers 
of  Germanized  Mittel-Europa. 

The  better  to  coordinate  their  military  operations,  the  prime 
ministers  and  chiefs  of  staff  of  France,  Great  Britain,  and  Italy 
conferred  at  Rapallo  on  November  9,  191 7,  and  agreed  to  create 
a  Supreme  War  Council,  the  organization  and  functions  of  which 
were  set  forth  as  follows:  ''The  Supreme  War  Council  is  com- 
posed of  the  prime  minister  and  one  other  member  of  the  govern- 
ment of  each  of  the  Great  Powers  whose  armies  are  fighting  on 
the  Western  Front ;  it  is  to  supervise  the  general  conduct  of  the 
war ;  it  prepares  recommendations  for  the  consideration  of  the 
governments  and  keeps  itself  informed  of  their  execution  and 
reports  thereon  to  the  several  governments."  The  first  act 
of  the  Supreme  War  Council  was  the  appointment  of  an  Inter- 

*  Subsequently,  in  1918,  Costa  Rica  (May  23),  Guatemala  (April  22),  Haiti 
(July  15),  Honduras  (July  19),  and  Nicaragua  (May  24)  declared  war  against 
Germany. 


272         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Allied  General  Staff,  consisting  of  Generals  Foch  (France), 
Wilson  (Great  Britain),  and  Cadorna  (Italy).  Early  in  Decem- 
ber an  Inter- Allied  Naval  Board  was  created  by  the  Supreme 
War  Council.  It  was  obvious  that  at  last  the  Allies  were  becom- 
ing convinced  of  the  imperative  need  of  unity  of  counsel  and 
unity  of  action. 

At  the  end  of  November,  191 7,  the  long  deferred  Allied  Con- 
ference met  at  Paris.  Delegates  were  present  from  France, 
Great  Britain,  Italy,  the  United  States,  and  all  the  other  allied 
and  associated  states,  except  Russia,  which  was  then  in  the  midst 
of  negotiations  with  Germany  for  an  armistice.  No  detailed 
statement  was  made  of  the  plans  formulated,  but  it  was  indicated 
that  satisfactory  agreements  had  been  reached  whereby  a  uni- 
fied and  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  was  made  possible. 

Allied  prospects  should  have  seemed  bright.  Russia,  it  is 
true,  was  deserting  the  Allies,  but  the  United  States  was  coming 
to  take  Russia's  place.  The  ruthless  submarine  warfare  was 
weakening.  There  were  signs  of  unrest  and  discomfort  within 
the  Central  Empires.  The  Allies  were  clarifying  their  war-aims, 
husbanding  their  resources,  and  effecting  a  unity  of  purposes 
and  methods.  As  we  shall  discover  in  the  next  two  sections  of 
this  chapter,  the  Alhes  in  191 7  were  likewise  gaining  noteworthy 
advantages  in  the  fighting  on  the  Western  Front  and  were  recov- 
ering much  of  their  prestige  in  the  Near  East. 

THE  LESSON  OF  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

On  the  Western  Front  the  year  191 7  marked  the  first  significant 
retirement  of  the  Germans  since  the  battle  of  the  Marne  in  1914, 
and  it  also  marked  noteworthy  progress  in  the  war  of  attrition. 
The  Anglo-French  offensive  on  the  Somme  in  the  autumn  of 
1 91 6  had  failed  to  reach  its  chief  objectives,  —  the  towns  of 
Bapaume  and  Peronne,  —  but  it  had  caused  the  enemy  many 
casualties  and  had  badly  dented  his  line;  it  had  created  an 
awkward  salient  for  him  between  Arras  and  Saillisel  and  an 
even  greater  salient  hardly  less  difficult  between  Arras  and  the 
Aisne.  Continued  pressure  of  the  British  in  the  valley  of  the 
Ancre  throughout  January  and  February  of  191 7,  increased  the 
awkwardness  of  the  smaller  German  salient  and  endangered 
Bapaume. 

Early  in  March,  191 7,  it  became  apparent  that  the  German 
General  Staff  was  planning  to  evacuate  not  only  the  salient 
between  Arras  and  Saillisel  but  the  larger  salient  between  Arras 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     273 


and  the  Aisne.  For  some  time  Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg, 
the  German  Chief  of  Staff,  had  been  directing  the  preparation 
of  an  exceptionally  strong  defense  system  of  trenches,  officially 
styled  the  "Siegfried  Line''  but  subsequently  called  by  the 
Allies  the  "Hindenburg  Line,"  branching  off  from  the  old  posi- 
tion near  Arras  and  thence  running  in  a  relatively  straight  line 
southeastward  through  Queant  and  west  of  Cambrai,  St.  Quentin, 
and  La  Fere,  to  the  heights  of  the  Aisne.  Hindenburg  employed 
the  same  methods  of  defense  during  his  general  withdrawal  to 
the  Siegfried  Line  as  had  been  developed  in  the  smaller  retire- 
ment from  the  Ancre  valley.     Machine-gun  units  were  placed 


The  Western  Front  near  Arras  and  on  the  Aisne 

in  selected  strategic  positions  to  delay  the  advance  of  the  British 
and  French,  while  the  bulk  of  the  German  soldiers,  stealthily 
quitting  their  former  trenches,  transported  guns  and  ammuni- 
tion to  the  rear  and  systematically  devastated  the  territory 
covered  by  their  retreat. 

When  the  British  discovered  on  March  15  that  a  general  with- 
drawal was  being  carried  out  by  the  Germans,  General  Sir  Doug- 
las Haig  gave  orders  for  an  immediate  advance  of  his  forces 
along  the  whole  line  from  Arras  to  Roye.  Simultaneously,  the 
French  under  General  Nivelle  began  to  advance  on  the  front 
from  Roye  to  Rheims.  Chaulnes  and  Bapaume  fell  to  the  British 
on  March  17,  and  Peronne  and  Mont  St.  Quentin  were  occupied 
the  next  day.  At  the  same  time  the  French  entered  Noyon, 
and  speedily  reached  Tergnier,  a  town  less  than  two  miles  from 
La  Fere. 

The  reasons  given  for  this  German  withdrawal  in  March,  191 7, 
were  many  and  varied.  Reports  from  Berlin  represented  it  as 
a  strategical  retreat  intended  to  shorten  the  German  line,  to 


274         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

draw  the  Allies  out  into  the  open  so  that  they  could  be  defeated 
in  pitched  battles,  and  to  nullify  the  vast  preparations  which 
the  French  and  British  had  been  making  for  a  smashing  offensive 
in  the  summer  of  191 7.  On  the  other  hand,  Allied  authorities 
insisted  that  the  withdrawal  had  been  forced  upon  the  Germans 
and  was  in  no  way  voluntary ;  they  pointed  out  that  previous 
Anglo-French  gains  in  the  valleys  of  the  Somme  and  Ancre  had 
threatened  the  entire  Noyon  salient  to  such  an  extent  that  further 
gains  would  have  caused  a  gigantic  German  disaster.  At  any 
rate  the  outstanding  undisputed  effects  of  the  German  retire- 
ment were,  first,  that  the  Germans  now  stood  on  a  shortened 
line  of  great,  perhaps  impregnable,  strength,  and  secondly, 
that  the  Allies  had  recovered  more  than  a  thousand  square 
miles  of  French  territory,  including  nearly  four  hundred  towns 
with  a  population,  before  the  war,  of  approximately  200,000. 

The  territory  abandoned  by  the  Germans  was  a  scene  of  horrible 
desolation.  Wanton  destruction  was  visible  everywhere.  Of 
the  acts  of  barbarism  and  devastation  committed  by  the  retreat- 
ing Teutons  with  calculated  cunning,  only  a  faint  notion  can  be 
given.  As  the  official  note  of  the  French  Government  on  the 
subject  stated:  *'No  motive  of  military  necessity  can  justify 
the  systematic  ruin  of  public  monuments,  artistic  and  historical, 
and  of  public  property,  accompanied  as  it  is  by  violence  against 
civilians.  Cities  and  villages  in  their  entirety  have  been  pil- 
laged, burned,  and  destroyed  utterly ;  private  homes  have  been 
stripped  of  all  furniture,  which  the  enemy  has  carried  off ;  fruit 
trees  have  been  torn  up  or  blasted ;  streams  and  wells  have  been 
polluted.  The  inhabitants,  comparatively  few  in  number,  who 
have  not  been  removed,  have  been  left  with  a  minimum  of  ra- 
tions, while  the  enemy  has  seized  stocks  supplied  by  the  neutral 
food  commission  for  the  sustenance  of  the  civil  population.  .  .  . 
This  concerns  not  acts  designed  to  hinder  the  operations  of  our 
armies  but  sheer  devastation  having  for  its  sole  purpose  the  ruin 
for  years  to  come  of  one  of  the  most  fertile  regions  of  France. 
The  civilized  world  can  only  revolt  against  this  conduct  on  the 
part  of  a  nation  which  wished  to  impose  its  KuUur  on  all  man- 
kind, but  which  now  reveals  itself  once  again  as  very  close  to 
barbarism  and  which,  in  a  rage  of  disappointed  ambition,  tram- 
ples on  the  most  sacred  rights  of  humanity.'' 

By  April,  191 7,  the  Germans  were  standing  on  the  famous 
Hindenburg  Line.  They  were  certain  that  they  could  ward  off 
frontal  attacks  against  it,  so  splendid  were  both  its  natural  and 
its  artificial  defenses,  but  they  were  not  so  sure  of  the  pivots 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     275 


upon  which  it  rested.  These  pivots  were  the  positions  about 
Arras  in  the  north,  and  those  in  the  south  around  Laon.  It 
was  near  Arras  and  Laon  that  Generals  Haig  and  Nivelle  were 
already  aiming  offensives  respectively  of  the  British  and  of  the 
French. 

The  Battle  of  Arras  was  opened  Easter  Monday  (April  9)  on 
a  front  approximately  forty-five  miles  long  with  Lens,  the  coal 
city,  as  the  British  objective  at  one  end,  and  with  Queant,  an 
important  point  in  the  Hindenburg  Line,  as  their  objective  at 
the  other  end.  If  these  immediate  objectives  were  taken,  the 
way  might  then  be  open  to  the  important  cities  of  Douai  and 
Cambrai.  At  first  the  British  offensive  went  like  clock-work. 
Aircraft,  artillery,  infantry,  and  tanks  worked  in  perfect  com- 
bination. Within  three  days  Vimy  Ridge  and  some  two  miles 
of  the  northern  end  of  the  Hindenburg  Line  had  been  carried 
and  12,000  prisoners  and  150  guns  had  been  captured.  Queant 
was  not  yet  reached,  but  Lens  was  inclosed  in  a  dangerous 
^'pocket." 

On  April  16,  exactly  a  week  after  the  beginning  of  the  British 
offensive  in  the  vicinity  of  Arras,  the  French  under  General 
Nivelle  inaugurated  the  second  battle  of  the  Aisne  by  assailing 
the  southern  pivot  of  the  Hindenburg  Line  near  Laon.  Nivelle's 
rapid  rise  in  the  French  army  from  the  rank  of  colonel  in  Septem- 
ber, 1 9 14,  to  that  of  generalissimo,  succeeding  Marshal  Joffre, 


OBteud»^P*^'^°F  Mius 


The  Heights  of  the  Aisne 

in  December,  1916,  had  gone  to  his  head.  He  had  scant  patience 
with  the  tactics  which  the  Allies  had  developed  during  the  past 
year  on  the  Western  Front  —  the  advance  by  steady  stages 
to  limited  objectives  and  the  gradual  defeat  of  the  Germans 
through  wastage  of  their  man-power  rather  than  by  means  of 
decisive  engagements.  Nivelle 's  aim  was  the  *' decisive  blow" 
—  not  to  weaken  but  to  crush,  not  to  ''wear  down"  but  to  ''break 


276         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

through."  With  superb  self-confidence  he  gathered  his  armies 
for  a  supreme  effort.  He  would  force  the  heights  of  the  Aisne 
in  one  bold  assault  from  west,  south,  and  southeast;  he  would 
simultaneously  carry  the  Rheims  heights  from  the  north;  and 
at  the  same  moment  he  would  launch  his  main  offensive  through 
the  gap  between  the  two  into  the  plain  of  Laon.  It  was  by  far 
the  most  ambitious  attack  planned  in  the  West  since  the  battle 
of  the  Marne,  and  the  divisions  employed  were  three  times  those 
used  by  Haig  at  Arras. 

Valorously  the  French  fought,  and  some  progress  they  made. 
They  won  all  the  banks  of  the  Aisne  from  Soissons  to  Berry-au- 
Bac  and  all  the  spurs  of  the  Aisne  heights,  and  they  captured 
21,000  prisoners  and  175  guns.  But  the  main  German  positions 
were  too  strong  and  too  stubbornly  defended  to  be  taken  by  open, 
spectacular  assault ;  they  firmly  barred  the  way  to  Laon.  The 
major  strategy  of  Nivelle  failed  completely. 

The  result  was  a  pronounced  popular  reaction  in  France  against 
the  audacious  methods  of  Nivelle  in  favor  of  the  more  cautious 
tactics  previously  exemplified  by  Petain  and  Foch.  On  April 
28,  the  premier,  Alexandre  Ribot,  and  Paul  Painleve,  who  had 
recently  succeeded  General  Lyautey  as  war  minister,  conferred 
with  Nivelle;  and  two  days  later  it  was  announced  that  the 
post  of  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  at  the  Ministry  of  War  had 
been  revived,  and  that  Petain  had  been  appointed  to  fill  it. 
This  announcement  proved  to  be  only  a  precursor  to  a  more 
drastic  change,  for  on  May  15  Petain  formally  succeeded  Nivelle 
as  commander-in-chief  of  the  French  armies  in  France  while 
General  Foch  became  Chief  of  Staff  in  Paris. 

Thus  the  French  Government  logically  applied  a  fundamental 
lesson  learned  in  the  battle  of  the  Aisne.  Foch  and  Petain  were 
just  the  men  to  comprehend  that  the  Hindenburg  Line  could 
not  be  "broken  through"  or  turned  on  its  pivots  and  that  their 
function  was  less  to  recover  square  miles  of  desolated  territory 
than  to  wear  down  the  man-power  of  the  Germans  by  cautious 
but  incessant  offensives.  With  Petain  and  Foch  the  Allied 
strategy  on  the  Western  Front  returned  to  the  patient,  laborious, 
and  deadly  methods  which  had  been  practiced  on  the  Somme 
in  the  autumn  of  191 6  and  which  had  compelled  the  German 
withdrawal  in  March,  191 7,  to  the  Hindenburg  Line.  This 
was,  in  fact,  the  great  lesson  of  the  Hindenburg  Line,  and  one 
which,  when  taken  to  heart  through  the  bitter  experiences  of 
the  battles  of  Arras  and  the  Aisne,  augured  best  for  the  ultimate 
victory  of  the  Allies. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     277 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  191 7  both  the  French  and  the 
British  adhered  to  the  poHcy  of  attrition,  that  is,  wearing  the 
Germans  down  in  man  power,  morale,  and  materiel.  In  sector 
after  sector  along  the  Western  Front  they  launched  local  offen- 
sives against  Hmited  objectives,  and  every  httle  gain  they  made 
was  an  irrefusable  invitation  to  the  Germans  to  undertake  waste- 
ful and  costly  counter-attacks.  For  the  Allies  it  was  the  way 
to  ultimate  victory,  and  the  only  way. 

In  May  the  British  made  a  few  further  gains  in  the  vicinity 
of  Arras,  strengthening  their  hold  on  Vimy  Ridge  and  increas- 
ing their  toll  of  prisoners  for  the  entire  battle  of  Arras  to  20,000. 
In  the  same  month,  the  French  took  the  village  of  Craonne, 
ten  miles  southwest  of  Laon,  and  captured  both  ends  of  the 
Chemin  des  Dames,  a  celebrated  shaded  road  constructed  by 
Louis  XV  along  the  heights  north  of  the  Aisne.  During  the 
summer  months  the  German  Crown  Prince  is  estimated  to  have 
lost  more  than  100,000  men  in  unsuccessful  efforts  to  regain 
the  eastern  and  western  ends  of  the  Chemin  des  Dames.  Alto- 
gether the  German  losses  along  the  Hindenburg  Line  and  at  the 
pivots  from  April  to  September  were  not  less  than  350,000. 

After  a  lull  of  several  months,  a  renewal  of  the  offensive  on 
the  Aisne  occurred  in  October.  The  French  struck  on  a  six- 
mile  front  northeast  of  Soissons  and  in  one  of  the  most  brilHant 
operations  of  the  war  advanced  to  an  average  depth  of  a  mile 
and  a  half.  The  perfect  cooperation  between  the  artillery, 
tanks,  aircraft,  and  infantry  was  a  tribute  to  General  Pe tain's 
foresight,  energy,  and  organizing  ability.  The  Germans  soon 
found  their  remaining  positions  on  the  Chemin  des  Dames 
untenable,  and  consequently,  by  the  end  of  the  month,  they  fell 
back  across  the  Ailette  river  upon  Laon.  In  this  last  thrust 
the  French  regained  nearly  forty  square  miles  of  territory  and 
captured  12,000  prisoners  and  200  guns;  they  now  dominated 
the  valleys  of  the  Ailette  and  the  Aisne. 

Meanwhile  the  French  executed  a  significant  movement,  far 
to  the  east  of  the  Hindenburg  Line,  at  Verdun.  On  August 
20  they  made  a  quick  thrust,  after  a  brief  artillery  preparation, 
against  the  German  positions  on  either  side  of  the  Meuse ;  they 
captured  Avocourt  Wood,  Le  Mort  Homme  (Dead  Man's  Hill), 
Corbeaux,  and  Cumieres  Woods,  and  4000  prisoners.  In  the 
next  four  days  smashing  blows  were  delivered  which  resulted  in 
the  capture  of  Regneville,  Samogneux,  Cote  de  I'Oie  (Goose 
Ridge),  and  more  than  15,000  prisoners.  By  the  middle  of  Sep- 
tember, the  French  had  recovered  more  than  one  hundred  of  the 


278         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

1 20  square  miles  of  territory  which  the  the  Germans,  under 
Crown  Prince  Frederick  WilHam,  had  seized  in  their  mighty 
and  protracted  offensive  of  1916. 

The  same  tactics  employed  by  the  French  at  Verdun  and 
on  the  Aisne  were  used  by  the  British  in  Flanders.  Following 
the  cessation  of  the  battle  of  Arras  in  May,  191 7,  Sir  Douglas 
Haig  turned  his  attention  northward.  His  first  care  was  to 
straighten  the  British  lines  between  Ypres  and  Lens  by  driving 
the  Germans  from  their  commanding  salient  on  the  Messines- 
Wytschaete  ridge.  Under  the  principal  German  fortifications 
on  this  ridge,  British  and  colonial  sappers  had  been  digging  for 
over  fifteen  months  until  now  they  had  placed  nineteen  mines 
containing  nearly  five  hundred  tons  of  ammonite.  Early  in 
the  morning  of  June  7,  191 7,  the  mines  were  exploded  by  elec- 
tricity, and  a  veritable  man-made  earthquake  occurred.  The 
tops  of  the  hills  were  blown  off  and  the  earth  rocked  like  a  ship 
rolling  at  sea.  The  detonation  could  be  heard  within  a  radius 
of  150  miles.  Simultaneously  with  the  explosion  of  the  mines, 
the  artillery  fire,  which  had  been  growing  in  intensity  for  two 
weeks,  reached  its  culmination.  Then  the  infantry,  composed 
of  English,  Irish,  Australian,  and  New  Zealand  units,  swept 
forward  on  a  front  extending  from  Observation  Ridge,  south 
of  Ypres,  to  Ploegsteert  Wood,  north  of  Armentieres,  and  within 
a  brief  time  captured  German  positions  on  a  ten-mile  front 
including  the  villages  of  Messines  and  Wytschaete,  and  wiped 
out  the  menacing  German  salient.  Seven  thousand  prisoners 
fell  into  British  hands,  and  the  estimated  German  casualties 
were  30,000.     The  total  British  losses  were  under  10,000.' 

With  the  Messines- Wytschaete  Ridge  in  British  possession,  it 
was  now  safe  for  the  Allies  to  inaugurate  an  offensive  from  Ypres. 
Of  this  offensive  the  immediate  object  was  to  gain  the  high 
ground  in  front  of  Ypres,  called  Passchendaele  Ridge ;  the  ulti- 
mate objects  were  to  compel  the  Germans  to  withdraw  from  the 
Belgian  coast  and  thus  to  surrender  their  submarine  bases  at 
Ostend  and  Zeebrugge,  and  also  to  envelop  the  industrial 
city  of  Lille  and  the  railway-center  at  Roulers.  From  July 
to  November  the  conflict  raged.  British  on  the  right  and 
French  on  the  left  pressed  forward  yard  by  yard.  Frequent 
torrential  downpours  of  rain  which  repeatedly  turned  the  low 
flat  terrain  into  a  sea  of  mud,  made  progress  slow  and  halting. 
Yet  the  Allies,  with  the  aid  of  vastly  improved  artillery,  with 

1  Conspicuous  among  the  British  dead  on  this  occasion  was  Major  William 
Redmond,  a  member  of  Parliament  and  brother  of  the  Irish  NationaHst  leader. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     279 

an  apparently  inexhaustible  supply  of  ammunition,  and  with 
grim  determination,  plodded  on.  The  Germans,  heavily  reen- 
forced  from  the  Eastern  Front,  soon  found  that  ordinary  trenches 
could  not  withstand  either  the  rains  or  the  enemy-guns;  they 
began  to  take  refuge  behind  bags  of  sand  and  in  what  the  British 
soldiers  called  ^'pillboxes."  These  were  concrete  redoubts. 
They  were  oftentimes  some  distance  apart  and  were  just  about 
level  with  the  ground,  making  them  in  many  cases  invisible 


J  Former  Allied 

position      ^  _  -^ 
■  Allied  Front'lofS^ 

cndofl917   •  " 


SCALE  OF  MILES 

0    V2    1 


Battles  of  Messines  Ridge  and  Ypres 


to  aviators.  They  fairly  bristled  with  machine  guns,  and  unless 
they  were  destroyed  by  artillery  fire,  they  were  pecuHarly  fatal 
to  attacking  infantry. 

Preliminary  attacks  were  made  by  the  Allies  at  the  end  of 
July  and  in  August,  each  resulting  in  expensive  German  counter- 
attacks. Between  the  middle  of  September  and  the  middle  of 
October  the  Allies  deHvered  five  extremely  heavy  blows,  which 
won  them  an  area  of  nearly  twenty-three  square  miles  and  carried 


28o         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

them  to  the  Ypres-Roulers  road  on  the  northwest  as  well  as 
advancing  them  a  mile  astride  of  the  Ypres-Menin  road.  British 
artillery  now  commanded  the  Flanders  plain,  and  guns  of  the 
largest  caHber  could  effectively  shell  Roulers,  about  five  miles 
distant.  On  October  30  the  British  entered  Passchendaele, 
but  were  almost  immediately  driven  out  by  vigorous  counter- 
assaults.  After  a  week  of  heavy  bombardment,  Canadian  troops 
retook  the  town  and  German  positions  800  yards  beyond  and 
held  their  gains  in  face  of  furious  counter-attacks.  Throughout 
November  the  Allies  fought  successfully  to  consolidate  their 
new  positions  and  to  clear  the  sides  of  Passchendaele  Ridge. 

The  political  and  economic  results  of  the  Battle  of  Flanders 
were  not  advantageous  to  the  Allies ;  no  sensational  victory  had 
been  achieved;  the  Germans  were  still  profiting  by  their  con- 
trol of  the  Belgian  coast  and  by  their  occupation  of  the  important 
industrial  center  of  Lille.  From  a  strictly  military  point  of 
view,  however,  the  protracted  conflict  was  advantageous.  The 
Allies  had  enormously  strengthened  their  hold  on  Ypres  and 
had  secured  important  new  positions  from  which  they  might 
direct  a  more  decisive  offensive  in  1918 ;  vastly  more  important, 
they  had  inflicted  upon  Germany  such  serious  losses  as  no  party 
to  an  endurance  test  could  comfortably  sustain. 

On  November  20  the  British  started  a  drive  toward  Cambrai, 
which  for  a  time  threatened  to  smash  the  Hindenburg  Line  and 
possibly  put  an  end  to  the  deadlock  on  the  Western  Front. 
With  scarcely  any  artillery  preparation,  the  infantry,  aided  by 
a  large  number  of  huge  tanks,  plunged  forward  on  the  Bapaume- 
Cambrai  road  and  toward  the  Scheldt  Canal,  capturing  several 
villages,  securing  a  part  of  Bourlon  Wood,  and  rendering  Ger- 
man occupation  of  Queant  and  Cambrai  for  a  time  most  preca- 
rious. On  the  last  day  of  November,  however,  before  the  British 
had  been  able  to  complete  the  consolidation  of  their  newly  won 
positions,  the  Germans  launched  a  counter-offensive  on  a  sixteen- 
mile  front  north,  south,  and  east  of  the  British  wedge.  On  the 
north  and  east  they  failed  to  gain,  but  on  the  south  they  made 
such  headway  that  the  British  were  compelled  to  evacuate 
Bourlon  Wood  and  to  retire  to  their  original  positions.  The 
battle  of  Cambrai  ended  on  December  7,  with  honors  —  and 
losses  —  about  evenly  divided.  In  one  respect  this  battle 
was  enormously  significant :  it  heralded  the  break-through  and 
the  open  warfare  of  the  succeeding  spring. 

Over  against  all  the  numerous  and  varied  offensives  conducted 
by  the  British  and  French  during  the  year  191 7,  —  at  Arras,  on 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     281 

the  Aisne,  at  Verdun,  and  in  Flanders,  —  only  two  offensives 
were  attempted  by  the  Germans  on  the  whole  extended  Western 
Front.  One  of  these  was  the  counter-attack  in  the  vicinity 
of  Cambrai,  just  described ;  and  the  other  was  a  little  offensive 
on  the  Yser,  close  to  the  Belgian  coast,  late  in  July.  Here  the 
British  were  surprised  and  driven  back  across  the  river,  with  a 
total  loss  of  3000  men.  The  very  pettiness  of  the  German 
success  on  the  Yser  and  of  the  German  recovery  at  Cambrai, 
when  considered  in  conjunction  with  the  large-scale  German 


0  12  3  4 

•  •  •  •Original  British  poeitlon 
■■  ■■  Hi  Furthest  British  advance 
m^^^PositioD  after  British  withdrsval 


withdrawal  to  the  Hindenburg  Line  and  with  the  constant  and 
effective  Anglo-French  thrusts  along  the  whole  Front,  indicated 
to  the  world  that  the  Allies  not  only  were  fully  holding  their  own, 
but  could  take  the  offensive  whenever  and  wherever  they  wished. 
The  endurance  test  was  beginning  to  tell  heavily  against  Germany. 


RECOVERY  OF  ALLIED   PRESTIGE  IN  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Until  191 7  the  most  uniformly  inglorious  scene  of  Allied  oper- 
ations had  been  the  Near  East.  Beginning  with  the  failure  of 
the  naval  attack  upon  the  Dardanelles  in  March,  191 5,  one  dis- 
aster after  another  had  attended  AlKed  arms  and  Allied  diplo- 
macy.    There  were  the  failures  in  191 5  to  wrest  the  GallipoH 


282         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

peninsula  from  the  Turks,  to  reconstruct  the  Balkan  League, 
to  prevent  Bulgaria  from  joining  Mittel-Europa,  and  to  save 
Serbia  and  Montenegro  from  conquest.  In  1916  a  large  Allied 
army  in  Macedonia,  frightened  by  the  Bulgarians  and  flouted 
by  a  Greek  king,  had  been  helpless  to  succor  Rumania ;  and  in 
far-away  Mesopotamia  a  British  expedition  for  the  capture  of 
Bagdad  had  ended  in  disaster.  The  Russians,  it  is  true,  had 
wrested  Old  Armenia  (just  south  of  the  Black  Sea)  from  the 
Turks,  but  their  success  was  sHght  compensation  for  the  over- 
whelming advantages  which  Germany  had  gained  and  still 
retained  in  the  Near  East.  To  Berlin  and  Vienna  were  tied  fast 
by  steel  rails  the  cities  of  Belgrade,  Sofia,  and  Constantinople; 
and  from  the  Bosphorus  ran  those  Germanized  trade-routes 
across  Asia  Minor  and  thence,  either  through  Mesopotamia 
to  Bagdad  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  in  the  general  direction  of 
India,  or  through  Syria  and  Palestine  to  the  Red  Sea,  in  the 
general  direction  of  Egypt.  The  Near  East  had  become  an 
aggregation  of  German  satrapies.  Mittel-Europa  from  the  Baltic 
to  Bagdad  was  a  fact  and  not  a  fiction,  and  as  a  fact  it  would 
remain  so  long  as  Allied  prestige  was  lacking  in  Turkey  and  in 
the  Balkans.  The  Allies  might  undertake  many  offensives 
in  France  and  in  Flanders ;  they  would  not  shake  the  confidence 
of  the  peoples  of  the  Near  East  or  of  the  German  people  them- 
selves in  the  proud  imperial  destiny  of  the  Hohenzollerns  until 
they  had  won  significant  military  successes  in  the  Near  East 
and  recovered  some  of  their  own  prestige. 

In  the  latter  half  of  19 16  the  British  Government  matured 
plans  to  assure  the  security  of  India  and  Egypt  against  the 
Mittel-Europa  menace  of  the  Turks.  The  expeditionary  force 
in  Egypt  was  augmented  and  its  commander.  Sir  Archibald 
Murray,  from  his  headquarters  at  Cairo,  directed  the  building 
of  a  railway  eastward  from  Kantara  across  the  Sinai  desert, 
whence  a  British  invasion  of  Palestine  might  later  be  attempted. 
This  project  was  aided  by  an  open  revolt  of  the  Arabs  against 
the  Turks.  Already  predisposed  to  rebellion  by  the  ''  liberalism  " 
and  scarcely  concealed  agnosticism  of  Enver  Pasha  and  the 
other  Young  Turks,  and  by  the  deliberate  abrogation  of  pro- 
visions of  the  Sacred  Mohammedan  Law  laid  down  in  the  Koran 
itself,  the  Arabs  of  Hedjaz,  east  of  the  Red  Sea,  now  felt  them- 
selves provoked  beyond  endurance  by  the  execution  of  some  of 
their  leaders.  On  November  16,  1916,  Husein,  sherif  of  Mecca, 
solemnly  proclaimed  the  independence  of  Hedjaz  with  himself 
as  Sultan,  and  was  promptly  recognized  by  the  Entente  Powers. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     283 

The  revolting  Arabs,  by  their  operations  north  of  the  Red  Sea 
and  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  did  much  to  render  futile  the  Turco- 
German  advance  against  Egypt,  thus  enabling  the  British  to 
protect  the  Suez  Canal  and  to  construct  the  railway  across  the 
Sinai  desert.  And  meanwhile,  as  special  protection  to  India, 
the  small  expeditionary  force  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
was  strengthened  by  reenforcements  from  India  and  from 
Great  Britain  and  put  under  the  command  of  Sir  Stanley  Maude 
(August,  1916). 

By  February,  191 7,  General  Maude  was  ready  to  attempt 
to  retrieve  General  Townshend's  disaster  at  Kut-el-Amara. 
The  transport  system  was  working  well ;  several  river  monitors 
had  arrived  to  aid  the  projected  offensive;  and  the  weather 
conditions  were  favorable  to  a  renewal  of  fighting.  As  a  result 
of  a  series  of  local  engagements  and  of  manoeuvering  for  position, 
the  British,  by  the  middle  of  February,  established  their  lines 
on  both  banks  of  the  Tigris,  where  it  formed  a  bend  west  of 
Kut-el-Amara.  On  February  24  Sanna-i-yat  and  part  of  the 
Shumran  peninsula,  the  keys  to  Kut,  were  taken.  The  Turks 
believed  these  positions  to  be  impregnable,  and  made  gallant 
though  costly  efforts  to  defend  them.  Their  fall  compelled  the 
Turks  to  abandon  Kut-el-Amara  and  retreat  up  the  river. 

In  the  pursuit  the  British  gunboats  on  the  Tigris  wrought 
considerable  havoc  among  the  Turks  by  getting  ahead  of  them 
and  firing  upon  them  as  they  approached.  The  Turkish  boats 
on  the  river  were  destroyed,  and  the  monitors  which  had  been 
lost  with  the  surrender  of  General  Townshend's  army  were 
recaptured.  The  British  reached  Aziziyeh,  halfway  to  Bagdad, 
on  February  28,  and  early  in  March  they  forced  the  crossing  of 
the  Diala.  Then,  attacking  the  Turks  from  both  sides  of  the 
Tigris,  they  drove  them  into  Bagdad.  In  the  night  of  March 
10,  191 7,  the  Turks  evacuated  the  city,  leaving  in  the  hands  of 
the  British  their  own  artillery,  seized  a  year  before  at  Kut-el- 
Amara,  and  a  large  number  of  Turkish  guns.  The  capture  of 
Bagdad  was  not  of  great  strategic  importance,  but  it  had  a  re- 
markable effect  upon  morale.  It  appealed  to  jaded  imaginations 
in  England,  France,  and  America;  it  alarmed  the  Central 
Empires ;  and  in  the  Near  East  it  gave  shape  and  substance  to 
Allied  prestige. 

To  secure  Bagdad  against  counter-attacks.  General  Maude 
pursued  the  fleeing  Turks  in  three  directions :  his  right  wing 
cleared  the  caravan  route  leading  into  Persia;  his  left  wing 
moved  twenty-five  miles  up  the  Euphrates  to  the  prepared 


284        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Turkish  position  of  Ramadie ;  and  his  center,  advancing  up  the 
Tigris,  took  Samara  on  April  23  and  thus  gained  control  of  the 
Bagdad-Samara  railway,  which  facihtated  the  bringing  up  of 
supphes.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  intense  heat  which  began  to 
prevail  at  that  season  of  the  year  in  Mesopotamia  and  for  the 
Russian  Revolution  which  simultaneously  demoralized  the  Rus- 
sian forces  in  Armenia,  the  Turkish  armies  might  have  been 
caught  between  upper  and  nether  millstones  and  ground  to  bits 
on  their  nodal  points  at  Mosul  and  Aleppo.  As  it  was,  the 
better  part  of  Mesopotamia  was  in  Allied  hands,  and  the  Turks 
had  received  a  blow  from  which  they  could  not  recover. 

Meanwhile,  there  were  significant  developments  in  the  Greek 
peninsula.  For  four  months  after  the  capture  of  Monastir 
by  the  Serbs,  in  November,  191 6,  the  motley  Allied  Front  in 
Macedonia,  under  General  Sarrail,  had  remained  comparatively 
inactive.  In  April,  191 7,  a  sHght  forward  movement  was  at- 
tempted near  Doiran  and  a  few  local  gains  were  registered. 
But  Sarrail's  force  was  not  yet  strong  enough  to  crush  the  Bul- 
garian and  Austro-German  armies  facing  it,  especially  since 
behind  it  lurked,  in  the  person  of  King  Constantine  of  Greece, 
a  pro- German  commander  of  a  fairly  large  army  which  at  any 
moment  might  be  thrown  into  the  balance  against  the  AlHes. 
The  weakening  of  Russia  and  Rumania  in  191 7  and  their  ultimate 
defection  left  the  forces  of  Mittel-Europa  in  Macedonia  quite 
unhampered  and  thereby  postponed  indefinitely  any  decisive 
offensive  on  the  part  of  Sarrail.  This  was  obviously  of  immediate 
disadvantage  to  the  Allies.  On  the  other  hand,  the  AlKes  re- 
covered enough  prestige  in  the  Near  East  as  a  result  of  General 
Maude's  successes  in  Mesopotamia  to  enable  them  fearlessly 
and  drastically  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Greece  and 
to  deprive  the  dangerous,  treacherous  King  Constantine  of  his 
occupation  as  trouble-maker.  And  this  promised,  in  the  long 
run,  to  be  of  the  utmost  advantage  to  the  Allies. 

During  May  the  Allied  authorities  at  Salonica  did  everything 
they  could  to  encourage  Greeks  to  flock  to  the  standard  of  revolt 
which  Venizelos  had  already  raised.  By  the  end  of  that  month 
Venizelos  was  estimated  to  have  furnished  nearly  60,000  Greek 
soldiers  to  the  AUied  army  in  Macedonia.  Then,  on  June  10, 
191 7,  French  and  British  troops,  entering  Thessaly,  occupied 
Volo  and  Larissa,  and  on  the  following  day  a  French  force  seized 
the  isthmus  of  Corinth. 

On  June  11,  Charles  Jonnart,  formerly  French  governor  of 
Algeria  and  now  named  high  commissioner  of  Greece,  arrived 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY      285 

in  Athens  and  demanded  of  the  royalist  premier,  M.  Zaimis/ 
the  immediate  abdication  of  King  Constantine  and  the  renuncia- 
tion of  the  Crown  Prince's  right  of  succession.  The  king  was 
not  in  a  position  to  fight,  and  Jonnart  was  peremptory.  There 
was  only  one  thing  to  do.  And  so  on  June  12,  191 7,  Constantine 
abdicated  the  throne  of  Greece  in  favor  of  his  second  son,  Prince 
Alexander ;  and  on  the  next  day  the  late  sovereign  and  his 
Hohenzollern  wife  sailed  away  from  Hellas  under  escort  of  two 
French  destroyers.  Under  Jonnart's  supervision,  King  Alex- 
ander was  duly  proclaimed,  several  notoriously  pro-German 
Greek  leaders  were  expelled  from  the  country,  and  an  accord 
was  reached  between  the  partisans  of  Venizelos  and  those  of 
Zaimis.  On  June  25  Zaimis  resigned  and  Venizelos  became 
prime  minister  of  a  united,  pro-Ally  Greece.  On  July  2  all 
diplomatic  relations  between  Greece  and  the  Central  Powers 
were  ruptured  and  the  state  of  war  which  had  hitherto  existed 
in  Venizelos's  jurisdiction  was  now  extended  to  the  whole  coun- 
try. On  July  7  the  Government  convoked  the  Chamber  which 
had  been  elected  in  May,  191 5,  but  which  had  been  dissolved 
illegally  by  Constantine.  At  the  end  of  July  the  Allied  troops 
of  occupation  were  withdrawn.  Greece  was  finally  in  the  Great 
War  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  and  the  entire  Greek  army,  instead 
of  constituting  a  hostile  threat  in  the  rear  of  General  Sarrail's 
force,  was  now  available  in  full  strength  for  an  AlHed  offensive 
in  the  Balkans.  Throughout  the  remainder  of  191 7  much  atten- 
tion was  given  to  strengthening  and  reorganizing  the  Macedonian 
Front ;  and  General  Sarrail,  whose  reputation  had  been  fatally 
clouded  for  two  years  by  a  most  unfortunate  series  of  untoward 
circumstances,  was  succeeded  in  the  supreme  command  in  Decem- 
ber by  the  energetic  and  resourceful  General  Guillaumat. 

Even  more  helpful  to  the  recovery  of  Allied  prestige  in  the 
Near  East  than  the  revolution  in  Greece  and  the  capture  of  Bag- 
dad was  the  success  which  attended  in  191 7  the  British  offensive 
in  Palestine.  Under  Sir  Archibald  Murray,  British  troops, 
advancing  from  northern  Egypt,  had  driven  the  Turkish  forces 
before  them  across  the  Sinai  Desert  ^  and  had  constructed  a 
railway  from  Kantara  to  Rafa  on  the  southwestern  edge  of 
Palestine.  Thence  they  had  moved  northward  along  the  coast, 
but  had  been  checked  in  two  successive  battles,  in  March  and 

*  Zaimis  had  succeeded  Lambros  as  King  Constantine's  prime  minister  on 
May  4,  1917. 

2  The  Turkish  forces,  it  should  be  remembered,  were  here  engaged  on  two  fronts : 
the  one,  against  the  British  advancing  from  Egj^t ;  the  other,  against  the  Arabs  of 
Hedjaz. 


286 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


in  April,  and  prevented  from  occupying  Gaza.  It  was  then 
that  General  Murray  was  recalled  and  succeeded  by  General 
Edmund  Allenby,  a  particularly  brilHant  British  cavalry  leader, 
who  devoted  the  hot  summer  months  to  improving  the  morale 
and  equipment  of  the  expeditionary  force. 

In  October  the  offensive  was  renewed.  While  the  Arabs  of 
Hedjaz  under  their  sultan  kept  large  Turkish  forces  desperately 
engaged  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  Allenby  took  Beersheba  in  a 
surprise  attack  and  on  November  6  captured  Gaza.  Contin- 
uing his  advance  northward,  with  comparatively  little  opposi- 
tion, General  Allenby  cut  the  Jaffa- Jerusalem  railway  at  Ludd 


and  El  Ramie  and  on  November  i6  occupied  Jaffa.  The  British 
then  began  a  movement  to  encircle  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  drawing 
towards  it  from  the  northwest,  west,,  and  south.  All  the  Turkish 
positions  around  the  Holy  City  were  taken  by  storm;  and,  as 
the  British  closed  in,  it  became  apparent  that  the  Turks  would 
not  risk  a  siege.  On  December  lo,  191 7,  Jerusalem  was  sur- 
rendered to  the  British  army  of  General  Allenby,  and  the  Turkish 
rule  which  had  there  endured  for  seven  centuries  came  to  an  end. 
The  success  of  British  arms  in  Palestine  was  loudly  acclaimed 
by  the  Christian  populations  of  the  Entente  Powers  as  the  final 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     287 

achievement  of  the  goal  of  the  medieval  Crusaders.  It  likewise 
stimulated  the  aspirations  of  the  Zionists  for  the  reestablishment 
of  a  Jewish  state  in  Palestine  and  of  the  Mohammedan  Arabs 
for  the  construction  of  a  ''Greater  Arabia." 


SEEMING   OBSTACLES   TO  ALLIED   VICTORY 

From  the  preceding  sections  of  this  chapter  one  would  be 
justified  in  concluding  that  the  Allies  in  191 7  were  clearly  on 
the  way  to  ultimate  certain  victory.  They  were  recovering 
their  prestige  in  the  Near  East.  They  were  proving  their  supe- 
riority on  the  Western  Front.  And  if  they  were  temporarily 
weakened  by  the  defection  of  Russia,  they  were  strengthened 
by  the  adherence  of  the  United  States  to  their  cause.  Of  their 
enemies,  one  after  another  was  experiencing  discomfort  and 
humiliation :  Turkey  was  losing  Mesopotamia  and  Palestine ; 
Bulgaria  was  becoming  cynical  and  indifferent;  Austria-Hun- 
gary was  on  the  verge  of  revolution  and  disruption;  and  in 
Germany  there  was  ominous  fault-finding.  The  submarine 
warfare,  on  which  the  Teutons  now  chiefly  relied,  fell  far  short 
in  December  of  what  in  January  had  been  expected;  and  the 
governments  of  the  Central  Empires  devoted  less  attention  to 
military  campaigns  than  to  ''peace  drives." 

Yet,  curiously  enough,  the  peoples  of  France,  Italy,  and  Great 
Britain  did  not  perceive  the  signs  of  the  time  or  did  not  read 
them  aright.  Instead  of  realizing  that  the  chances  of  their 
ultimate  victory  were  immeasurably  improved  by  the  events 
of  191 7,  they  fell  into  a  strange  mood  of  poignant  pessimism. 
Like  wanderers  in  a  wilderness  who,  without  knowing  it,  were 
almost  in  sight  of  the  promised  land,  they  were  more  terrified 
by  the  dangers  and  shadows  through  which  they  had  passed 
than  elated  by  the  prospect  of  sunshine  and  refreshment  beyond. 
Month  after  month,  and  year  after  year,  the  Great  War  had 
dragged  on ;  and  the  Entente  nations,  who  had  borne  its  heat 
and  burden  almost  from  the  beginning,  would  not  have  been 
human  if  they  had  not  in  their  hearts  grown  sick  and  tired  of 
it  by  191 7.  In  their  natural  war- weariness  these  peoples  viewed 
daily  developments  out  of  proper  perspective.  They  magnified 
the  assistance  which  the  defection  of  Russia  would  bestow  upon 
their  enemies,  and  they  mimimized  the  aid  which  they  themselves 
would  obtain  from  the  United  States.  It  seemed  as  though 
all  the  resources  of  Russia  would  be  instantly  at  the  command  of 
Germany,  and  as  though  American  troops  could  never  be  trained 


288        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

and  equipped  and  transported  to  France  and  rendered  really 
serviceable.  Barred  by  governmental  censorship  from  exact 
knowledge  of  the  progress  of  the  submarine  warfare,  they  tended 
to  discount  the  official  statements  that  it  was  failing  of  its  pur- 
pose. The  battles  along  the  Hindenburg  Line,  at  Arras,  on  the 
Aisne,  at  Verdun,  and  in  Flanders,  were  too  protracted,  too 
bitterly  contested,  too  sanguinary,  to  establish  Alhed  mihtary 
superiority  as  a  demonstrated  fact.  And  the  deposition  of  a 
Greek  king  and  the  capture  of  Bagdad  and  of  Jerusalem,  though 
noisily  acclaimed,  were  popularly  deemed  too  insignificant  in 
themselves  materially  to  affect  the  fortunes  of  the  Great  War. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  movement  gathered  headway  in 
Alhed  countries  in  1917  in  favor  of  a  "negotiated  peace,"  that 
is,  in  favor  of  a  ''peace  without  victory"  as  opposed  to  a  ''peace 
through  victory."  This  so-called  defeatist  movement  drew  its 
strength  from  quite  diverse,  even  incompatible,  elements.  In 
the  first  place,  there  were  groups  of  Socialist  and  other  ultra- 
radical workingmen  who,  influenced  largely  by  their  Russian 
brethren,  accused  their  own  governments  of  pursuing  ''imperial- 
istic" aims  and  themselves  championed  the  principle  of  "no 
annexations,  no  indemnities."  Secondly,  there  were  certain 
bankers  and  industrial  magnates  who  feared  lest  protraction 
of  the  war  might  destroy  national  credit,  drive  all  governments 
into  bankruptcy,  and  pave  the  way  for  the  spread  of  sociaUstic 
revolution  throughout  the  world  and  for  the  demorahzation  of 
the  whole  capitaHstic  structure  of  civilized  society.  Thirdly, 
there  were  ecclesiastical  groups  who  viewed  with  pity  and  chagrin 
this  most  terrible  war  between  professed  Christian  nations  and 
who  felt  instinctively  that  the  Church  should  reassert  its  moral 
leadership  in  the  affairs  of  mankind.  Fourthly,  there  were 
groups  of  pacifists  who,  though  pretty  effectually  silenced  by 
their  warlike  compatriots  during  the  earlier  years  of  the  war, 
now  found  expression  for  their  conviction  that  war  in  general 
is  immoral  and  inexpedient  and  that  peaceful  negotiation  and 
arbitration  are  always  preferable  to  organized  slaughter.  Fi- 
nally, there  were  a  few  old-time  diplomatists  who,  long  deprived 
of  the  exercise  of  their  vocation,  yearned  to  supplant  the  soldiers 
in  the  limelight  and  to  obtain  if  possible  by  intrigue  what  had 
not  been  secured  by  force  of  arms. 

Defeatism  in  AlHed  countries  was  naturally  encouraged  by 
Germany.  The  three  successive  chancellors  —  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg,  MichaeHs,  and  Hertling  —  constantly  prated  about  their 
desire  for  a  negotiated  peace  and  about  the  demoniacal  victory- 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     289 

lust  of  the  Allied  governments.  At  the  same  time  they  intrigued 
more  or  less  adroitly  with  every  disaffected  or  discontented 
element  in  Allied  countries.  For  example,  the  German  Govern- 
ment was  doubtless  privy  to  the  secret,  informal  conferences 
which  were  held  in  Switzerland  in  the  summer  of  191 7  among 
certain  bankers  of  France,  Great  Britain,  and  Germany.  There 
were  signs,  moreover,  that  Bethmann-Hollweg  backed  the 
efforts  of  the  Socialists  to  hold  an  international  conference  at 
Stockholm.  And  it  was  evident  that  MichaeHs  and  Hertling, 
as  well  as  Count  Czernin  of  Austria,  welcomed  the  papal  proposals 
for  peace.  Each  of  these  intrigues  promised  to  embarrass  the 
Allies  and  to  weaken  their  morale. 

It  was  natural  that  many  SociaKsts  should  seek  the  early 
ending  of  the  Great  War.  The  war  was  not  of  their  making, 
they  insisted,  and  it  was  working  havoc  among  them.  Karl 
Marx,  the  master  mind  of  SociaHsm,  had  pointed  seventy  years 
ago  to  the  international  soHdarity  of  all  the  world's  workingmen 
as  the  goal  of  his  movement ;  yet  most  of  the  progress  made  in 
this  direction  in  the  sixty-seven  years  from  1848  to  19 14  appeared 
to  have  been  lost  in  the  three  years  from  1914  to  1917.  In 
every  belligerent  country  there  was  a  cleavage  in  the  national 
SociaHst  Party  on  the  question  of  supporting,  and  cooperating 
with,  the  bourgeois  government,  the  Majority  Socialists  usually 
sharing  the  popular  enthusiasm  for  national  victory,  and  the 
Minority  Socialists,  or  Independents,  normally  indulging  in 
carping  criticism.  Besides,  as  a  general  rule,  the  Socialists 
of  Mittel-Europa  were  on  most  unfriendly  terms  with  the  Social- 
ists of  the  Entente  Powers.  The  international  organization 
was  moribund :  conspicuous  figures  in  it,  like  Scheidemann  of 
Germany,  Guesde  of  France,  and  Vandervelde  of  Belgium, 
were  now  whole-hearted  champions  of  their  respective  national 
causes;  and  what  remained  was  a  disjointed  and  dispirited 
remnant  in  Holland  and  in  the  Scandinavian  countries. 

With  the  advent  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  the  Socialists 
took  heart.  In  May,  191 7,  a  group  of  Russian  Socialists  pub- 
lished an  appeal  for  the  reassembling  of  the  International  and 
for  the  calling  of  a  peace  congress,  and  a  Dutch-Scandinavian 
Committee,  under  the  presidency  of  B ranting,  the  leader  of  the 
Swedish  Socialists,  invited  Socialist  representatives  of  all  nations 
to  meet  at  Stockholm.  Almost  simultaneously,  Austrian  and 
German  Socialists  drew  up  a  peace  program,  of  which  the 
main  points  were :  (i)  no  annexations ;  (2)  no  indemnities ; 
(3)  autonomy  for  the  subject  nationalities  of  the  Dual  Mon- 


290         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

archy ;  (4)  independence  for  Finland  and  Russian  Poland ;  (5) 
restoration  of  commerce  on  land  and  sea,  modification  of  the 
productive  system,  completion  of  an  international  administra- 
tion for  all  sea  routes  and  interoceanic  canals,  and  construction 
and  administration  of  railways  under  international  auspices; 
and  (6)  prohibition  of  the  capture  and  of  the  arming  of  mer- 
chant vessels.  In  Germany,  the  Majority  Socialists  set  forth 
a  supplementary  program  including  limitation  of  armaments, 
compulsory  arbitration,  the  ''open  door"  for  colonies,  free  trade, 
and  democratic  control  of  diplomacy ;  while  the  Minority  Social- 
ists included  in  their  special  peace-aims  the  restoration  of  Bel- 
gium and  Serbia,  an  independent  Poland,  and  a  plebiscite  for 
Alsace-Lorraine.  In  June  Socialist  leaders  arrived  at  Stock- 
holm from  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  and  Bulgaria ;  and  dis- 
cussions began  between  them  and  Socialists  of  neutral  states. 

In  most  Allied  countries  the  proposed  Stockholm  Conference 
was  viewed  at  first  with  disfavor  and  suspicion  as  a  bit  of  subtle 
German  propaganda.  But  the  Russian  Government  of  Kerensky 
endorsed  the  project  so  enthusiastically  that  gradually  a  majority 
of  the  French  Socialists  and  of  the  British  Labor  Party  were 
won  over  to  its  support.  Nevertheless,  the  Governments  of 
France,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States  withheld  pass- 
ports from  Socialist  delegates  and  prevented  their  countries 
from  being  represented  at  Stockholm.  One  result  was  the 
complete  failure  of  the  Stockholm  Conference.  Another  result 
was  acrimonious  discussion  of  the  subject  in  AlKed  countries 
and  increased  opposition  to  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war.  In  Great  Britain,  Arthur  Henderson,  the  leader  of  the 
Labor  Party,  resigned  from  the  war  cabinet  on  August  11,  In 
France,  the  Socialists  withdrew  from  the  cabinet  in  September. 
Altogether,  the  opposition  of  the  Allied  Governments  to  the 
Stockholm  Conference  opened  a  new  and  rich  field  for  insidious 
German  propaganda. 

From  the  Catholic  Church,  as  well  as  from  the  Socialists, 
came  in  191 7  a  special  plea  for  peace.  In  a  note  dated  August 
I,  Pope  Benedict  XV  called  upon  all  the  belligerent  Powers  to 
consider  the  possibilities  of  the  cessation  of  war.  The  pope 
outlined  the  general  terms  which  he  thought  would  assure  ''a 
just  and  lasting  peace"  :  (i)  the  replacing  of  material  force  by 
''the  moral  force  of  right";  (2)  a  "simultaneous  and  reciprocal 
decrease  of  armaments";  (3)  settlement  of  international  dis- 
putes by  arbitration;  (4)  a  guarantee  of  "true  freedom  and 
community  of  the  seas  "  ;  (5)  mutual  renunciation  of  indemnities, 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     291 

although  allowing  for  exceptions  which  ''certain  particular  rea- 
sons" would  seem  to  justify;  (6)  evacuation  and  restoration  of 
all  occupied  territories;  (7)  an  examination  ''in  a  conciliatory 
spirit"  of  rival  territorial  claims  such  as  those  of  Alsace-Lor- 
raine and  the  Trentino,  taking  into  account  "the  aspirations  of 
the  population."  To  this  note  President  Wilson  replied  on 
August  27.  He  pointed  out  that  the  actions  of  the  existing 
German  Government  rendered  fruitless  any  negotiations  with 
it,  and  called  upon  the  German  people  to  repudiate  their  "irre- 
sponsible" government.  At  the  same  time  the  President  indi- 
cated that  it  was  no  part  of  the  plan  of  the  United  States  to  join 
in  a  movement  to  crush  the  German  people.  He  repudiated 
the  idea  of  "punitive  damages,  the  dismemberment  of  empires, 
the  establishment  of  selfish  and  exclusive  economic  leagues" 
as  "inexpedient  and  in  the  end  worse  than  futile."  The  Entente 
Powers  generally  accepted  President  Wilson's  statement  as 
embodying  their  own  views,  and  made  no  detailed  replies  to  the 
Pope.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Central  Empires,  though  pre- 
serving a  marvelous  silence  upon  the  vital  questions  of  restora- 
tion of  conquered  territory  and  the  payment  of  indemnities,  were 
quite  punctilious  in  flattering  Pope  Benedict  and  in  assuring 
him  that  they  approved  the  limitation  of  armaments,  the  guar- 
antee of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and  the  substitution  of  the 
"moral  power  of  right"  for  the  "material  power  of  arms."  The 
pope  could  hardly  have  been  deceived  by  the  Teutonic  diplo- 
matists, so  wide  was  the  gulf  between  their  theory  and  their 
practice,  and  certainly  the  great  bulk  of  Catholics  in  Allied 
countries  continued,  as  before,  to  give  the  most  loyal  support 
to  their  respective  governments ;  yet  among  the  more  ignorant 
classes  of  Catholics,  the  papal  peace  effort  was  doubtless  utilized 
for  purposes  of  German  propaganda. 

Enough  has  been  said  perhaps  to  indicate  the  bases  of  the 
defeatist  movement.  There  were  echoes  of  it  in  Great  Britain  ^ 
and  even  in  the  United  States,  but  it  was  in  France  that  it  reached 
truly  alarming  proportions.  In  France,  the  scene  of  the  most 
heartrending  combats  of  three  years,  there  was  naturally  a 
greater  war-weariness  than  elsewhere,  in  measure  as  the  sacrifices 
and  sufferings  of  France  had  been  greater.  There  was  in  France, 
moreover,  an  instinctive  popular  fear  lest  out  of  the  war  might 
arise  a  military  dictator, . —  and  France  had  had  in  the  past  too 

1  British  pacifists  applauded  the  resignation  of  Arthur  Henderson,  the  Labor 
Party  leader,  from  the  War  Cabinet  and  welcomed  a  plea  put  forward  by  Lord 
Lansdowne,  a  distinguished  Conservative  diplomatist,  in  behalf  of  a  "peace  by 
compromise." 


292         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

many  military  dictators.  These  feelings  led  to  the  downfall 
of  the  Briand  cabinet  in  March,  191 7,  and  to  the  creation  of  a 
more  "moderate"  ministry  under  Alexandre  Ribot.  Ribot  was 
an  estimable  gentleman,  seventy-five  years  of  age,  who  had  had 
much  experience  in  public  and  private  finance,  but  whose  firm- 
ness consisted  in  obstinacy  and  whom  sluggishness  led  to  repose 
confidence  in  unworthy  or  inefficient  subordinates.  He  angered 
the  French  Socialists  by  refusing  to  allow  their  delegates  to 
proceed  to  Stockholm ;  yet  he  clung  tenaciously  to  his  minister 
of  the  interior,  Louis  Malvy,  who  actually  encouraged  Socialists 
and  pacifists  to  air  their  grievances  and  to  agitate  for  a  ''nego- 
tiated peace."  The  weakness,  if  not  corruption,  of  Malvy 
combined  with  the  depression  which  overspread  France  as  the 
result  of  General  Nivelle's  costly  failure  in  the  battle  of  the 
Aisne  to  pave  the  way  for  the  campaign  of  defeatism,  championed 
and  in  part  financed  by  Germany. 

Among  the  active  agents  of  the  defeatist  movement  in  France 
were  a  certain  Duval,  the  manager  of  the  newspaper  Bonnet 
Rouge;  M.  Humbert,  a  member  of  the  Senate  and  the  owner  of 
the  Paris  Journal;  Bolo  Pasha,  a  former  French  official  of  the 
Egyptian  khedive,  a  financier  and  an  adventurer;  and  several 
members  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  These  men  accepted 
large  sums  of  German  money,  which  they  devoted  to  the  creation 
of  a  sentiment  within  France  in  behalf  of  an  early  peace  with 
the  Central  Empires.  But  the  real  head  of  the  defeatist  move- 
ment was  Joseph  Caillaux,  a  wealthy  banker,  acknowledged 
head  of  the  anti-clerical  Radical  Party  in  France,  and  formerly 
prime  minister.  Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  this  dis- 
tinguished ''grandmaster  of  the  backstairs"  had  led  a  strange, 
peripatetic  life,  and  wherever  he  went  mischief  seemed  to  seed 
and  flourish.  He  was  at  heart  a  friend  of  Germany  and  an 
enemy  of  England;  he  believed  that  Germany  was  certain  to 
win  the  war  and  that  France  should  make  terms  with  the  inevi- 
table victor  before  it  was  too  late.  He  was  determined  to  safe- 
guard his  own  banking  interests.  He  was  thoroughly  selfish 
and  absolutely  unscrupulous.  He  associated  with  pro- German 
pacifists,  adventurers,  and  traitors.  He  conducted  mysterious 
intrigues  in  Spain,  in  Switzerland,  and  in  Italy.  Formerly  a 
professed  pope-baiter,  he  now  condescended  to  visit  the  Vatican 
and  endeavored  to  ensnare  bishops  and  cardinals  in  the  meshes 
of  his  conspiracy.  Formerly  a  stout  proponent  of  capitalism, 
he  now  hobnobbed  with  extreme  Socialists  and  praised  their 
revolutionary  aims. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     293 

Neither  Malvy  nor  Ribot  took  any  steps  to  counteract  or 
destroy  the  propaganda  of  defeatism,  which  grew  steadily 
throughout  the  summer  of  191 7.  But  gradually  voices  were 
raised  by  true  French  patriots  alike  against  the  defeatists  for 
their  temerity  and  against  the  Government  for  its  supineness. 
Particularly  strident  rose  the  voice  of  that  old  war-horse  of 
French  politics  and  patriotism,  Georges  Clemenceau.  In  his 
Parisian  newspaper  he  fairly  lashed  the  Government  and  the 
intriguers.  He  recognized  that  the  hour  was  supremely  critical 
in  French  history  and  he  was  ready  to  dare  anything  to  save 
his  beloved  France  from  treason  and  dishonor. 

So  great  was  the  patriotic  outcry  of  Clemenceau  and  his 
friends  that  Malvy  resigned  as  minister  of  the  interior  on  the  last 
day  of  August.  In  September  the  whole  cabinet  was  recon- 
structed, Painleve  becoming  premier,  Ribot  assuming  the  port- 
folio of  foreign  affairs,  and  the  Socialists  dropping  out.  But 
Painleve's  ministry  lasted  only  two  months;  an  adverse  vote 
in  the  Chamber  on  the  subject  of  the  defeatist  scandals  occa- 
sioned its  resignation;  and  on  November  16,  1917,  Clemenceau 
himself,  the  "Tiger"  and  the  "breaker  of  cabinets,"  as  he  was 
variously  styled,  became  prime  minister  and  minister  of  war. 

Clemenceau,  though  seventy-six  years  of  age,  threw  himself 
with  the  zest  and  zeal  of  a  young  man  into  the  task  of  destroying 
defeatism  and  assuring  "peace  through  victory."  Stephen 
Pichon  became  minister  of  foreign  affairs;  Jules  Pams,  of  the 
interior ;  Louis  Klotz,  of  finance ;  Louis  Loucheur,  of  muni- 
tions; and  Charles  Jonnart,  of  blockade  and  invaded  regions. 
The  small  fry  of  defeatist  intrigue,  such  as  Bolo  and  his  asso- 
ciates, were  promptly  arrested,  tried,  and  punished.  Malvy 
was  exiled.  And  in  January,  1918,  Clemenceau  dared  to  order 
the  arrest  of  the  formidable  Caillaux  on  the  charge  of  having 
endangered  the  security  of  the  state.  "It  was  probably  the 
most  courageous  political  act  of  the  war." 

Clemenceau's  brusque  dealing  with  French  defeatists  came 
none  too  early,  for  at  that  very  moment  the  poison  of  defeatism 
was  bringing  Italy  to  the  point  of  national  disaster.  Taking 
advantage  of  the  spread  of  pacifism  and  of  the  spirit  of  unrest 
and  sedition  in  Italy,^  the  Austro- Germans  in  October  and  No- 

^  A  secret  campaign  was  conducted  for  months  by  German  and  Bolshevist  agents 
in  Italy.  Insidious  appeals  were  addressed  to  ignorant  Catholic  peasants  as  well 
as  to  the  extreme  Socialists  of  the  cities.  In  August  there  were  serious  riots  at 
Turin  and  even  more  serious  mutinies  among  troops  sent  to  suppress  the  riots.  Yet 
despite  the  multiplication  of  signs  of  the  weakening  of  popular  morale,  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Premier  Boselli  remained  strangely  indifferent  and  unmoved. 


294         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

vember,  191 7,  hurled  large  armies  against  General  Cadorna's 
forces  and  succeeded  in  occupying  four  thousand  square  miles 
of  Italian  territory  and  in  capturing  nearly  300,000  prisoners 
and  2700  guns.  Just  as  Serbia  had  been  overcome  in  the  autumn 
of  191 5  and  Rumania  in  the  autumn  of  191 6,  so  in  the  autumn 
of  191 7  it  was  planned  by  Germany  to  put  Italy  out  of  the  war. 
Having  prepared  the  ground  by  means  of  sinister  defeatist 
propaganda,  Germany  sought  to  complete  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion by  resort  to  a  crushing  military  blow. 

At  the  beginning  of  October,  191 7,  the  main  Italian  armies, 
composed  of  seasoned  veterans,  were  fighting  the  Austrians  on 
comparatively  narrow  fronts  in  the  difficult  country  east  of  the 
Isonzo  river :  one  army  was  struggling  for  the  mastery  of  the 
Carso  Plateau  and  the  route  to  Trieste ;  the  other,  based  on 
Gorizia  and  Cividale,  was  concentrating  its  attacks  upon  the 
Bainsizza  Plateau,  farther  north.  Still  farther  north,  on  the 
upper  Isonzo  east  of  Caporetto,  was  yet  another  Italian  force; 
but  it,  like  the  Italian  armies  along  the  peaks  of  the  Carnic 
Alps  and  on  the  Trentino  Front,  consisted  chiefly  of  "terri- 
torials," that  is,  of  older  men  who  in  peace  time  were  held  in 
reserve,  with  only  a  sprinkling  of  soldiers  who  had  seen  long  and 
active  service. 

Meanwhile  Ludendorff,  the  actual  director  of  Mittel-Europa's 
General  Staff,  was  preparing  a  great  Austro-German  offensive. 
The  growth  of  the  pacifistic  Bolshevist  agitation  in  Russia 
enabled  him  to  transfer  about  100,000  men  and  great  quantities 
of  heavy  artillery  from  the  Eastern  to  the  Italian  Front.  The 
simultaneous  development  of  defeatism  in  Italy  led  to  an  aston- 
ishing fraternization  of  Austrian  and  Italian  troops  at  certain 
points  on  the  Italian  Front  and  resulted  in  a  serious  impairment 
of  the  morale  of  various  Italian  military  units.  The  stage  was 
set  for  another  spectacular  Teutonic  offensive ;  and  for  it  Luden- 
dorff's  strategy  was  excellent.  He  planned  to  strike  the  chief 
blow  at  the  unseasoned  and  corrupted  Italian  troops  on  the 
upper  Isonzo,  to  break  through,  and  then  to  cut  the  lines  of 
communication  of  the  Bainsizza  and  Carso  armies,  thereby 
causing  their  retirement,  and  perhaps  their  surrender,  by  out- 
flanking them.  Italian  disaster  would  relieve  Austria-Hun- 
gary of  fear  for  her  western  frontiers,  just  as  the  Bolshevist  revo- 
lution in  Russia  was  ridding  her  of  enemies  on  her  eastern  bor- 
ders. Austria-Hungary  could  then  breathe  again  quite  freely, 
and  Mittel-Europa  would  be  able  to  bring  all  its  resources  and 
all  its  energies  to  bear  upon  the  French  Front. 


ALLIES  PAVE   WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY     295 

On  October  21  Austro-German  batteries  of  heavy  artillery 
bombarded  the  Plezzo-Tolmino  front  and  the  northern  edge  of 
the  Bainsizza  Plateau.  As  the  Italian  guns  were  greatly  out- 
ranged and  outnumbered,  the  Teutons  with  little  difficulty 
broke  through  the  defensive  positions  and  crossed  to  the  western 
bank  of  the  upper  Isonzo.  Two  Italian  corps  threw  down  their 
rifles  and  treasonably  ran  away  or  surrendered,  thus  uncovering 
Caporetto  and  permitting  the  enemy  promptly  to  outflank  the 
Italian  armies  to  the  south.  The  rapid  advance  of  the  Teutons 
from  Caporetto  made  the  hasty  retreat  from  the  Bainsizza  and 
Carso  plateaus  westward  across  the  Isonzo  almost  a  rout.  On 
October  27  Berlin  announced  the  capture  in  five  days  of  60,000 
men  and  500  guns.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  though  General 
Cadorna  would  be  unable  to  extricate  his  menaced  armies.     On 


The  Austro-German  Invasion  of  Italy 

October  28  Cividale  was  taken,  and  on  the  same  day  Gorizia 
was  reoccupied  by  the  Austrians.  On  October  30  Udine,  the 
seat  of  Italian  general  headquarters,  fell ;  and  by  November  i 
the  Austro- Germans  were  on  the  Tagliamento  river,  well  within 
Italian  territory,  and  in  possession  of  180,000  prisoners  and 
1500  captured  guns.  The  forced  withdrawal  of  the  main  Italian 
armies  from  the  Isonzo  jeopardized  the  Italian  troops  guarding 
the  frontier  in  the  Carnic  Alps.  These  troops  were  consequently 
obliged  to  abandon  the  mountain  passes  and  to  beat  a  precipitate 
retreat  down  the  streams  running  into  the  upper  reaches  of  the 
Piave  and  TagHamento  rivers. 

The  Tagliamento   did    not   suffice    to   hold    the   victorious 


296         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Teutons,  who  threw  pontoon  bridges  across  it  in  scores  of  places 
and  drove  the  ItaHans  back  to  the  Livenza,  the  next  river  flow- 
ing into  the  Gulf  of  Venice  parallel  to  the  Tagliamento.  The 
Livenza,  too,  proved  inadequate  for  serious  defense  and  was 
frantically  clung  to  merely  to  allow  the  completion  of  intrench- 
ments  along  the  line  of  the  Piave  River,  ten  to  twenty  miles 
farther  west. 

At  this  juncture  French  and  British  infantry  and  artillery, 
hurriedly  dispatched  from  the  Western  Front,  began  to  arrive. 
General  Diaz  supplanted  General  Cadorna  as  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Italian  armies.  And  resistance  to  the  Teutonic 
offensive  commenced  to  stiffen.  The  line  of  the  lower  Piave 
held,  despite  a  few  temporary  successes  of  the  Austrians,  notably 
the  capture  of  Zenson.  Allied  monitors  were  employed  to  shell 
the  southern  extremity  of  the  enemy  line  and  thus,  in  a  measure, 
to  protect  Venice.  A  large  area  between  Venice  and  the  mouth 
of  the  Piave  was  flooded  to  prevent  a  direct  attack  upon  the 
famous  old  city. 

Finding  all  efforts  to  force  a  crossing  of  the  lower  Piave 
futile,  the  Austro-Germans  sought  to  outflank  the  new  Italian 
lines  by  striking  at  the  Asiago  Plateau  and  the  range  of  moun- 
tains between  the  upper  courses  of  the  Brenta  and  Piave  rivers. 
Masses  of  Austrians  and  Germans  were  hurled  at  the  Italian 
rock  positions,  but  in  vain.  Their  assaults  were  comparable 
to  those  made  by  the  Crown  Prince  during  the  great  drive  on 
Verdun  in  191 6.  Although  the  Italians  were  forced  to  yield 
some  ground,  the  Austro- German  attempt  to  reach  the  Venetian 
plains  from  the  north  was  foiled  as  effectually  as  was  their  attempt 
to  cross  the  lower  Piave.  In  December,  however,  new  anxiety 
was  caused  the  Allies  by  desperate  assaults  on  the  Asiago  Plateau 
and  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Brenta ;  Monte  Asolone  was  cap- 
tured by  the  Teutons,  and  Hkewise  the  lower  of  the  two  summits 
of  Monte  Tomba. 

With  the  coming  of  the  new  year,  Italian  prospects  brightened 
perceptibly.  On  December  30  Monte  Tomba  was  recovered, 
and  in  January  the  Teutons  were  compelled  to  relinquish  Monte 
Asolone  and  the  bridgehead  on  the  Piave  at  Zenson.  The  Austro- 
Germans  rested  from  their  labors  and  the  Italians  firmly  estab- 
lished themselves  in  their  new  Hues  from  the  Asiago  Plateau  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Piave.  The  retreat  from  the  Isonzo  had  reached 
its  end ;  it  had  taken  heavy  toll  of  Italy's  strength,  but  it  had 
failed  to  eventuate  in  that  decisive  disaster  which  for  some 
weeks  had  seemed  inevitable. 


ALLIES  PAVE  WAY  FOR  ULTIMATE  VICTORY      297 

The  retreat  to  the  Piave,  though  not  a  disaster,  was  enough 
of  a  misfortune  to  shock  the  ItaHan  people  profoundly.  It 
welded  them  into  a  closer  union,  and  roused  among  them  a  more 
fiercely  patriotic  spirit.  It  forced  reforms  in  the  army,  and  com- 
pelled the  Government  to  give  special  attention  to  the  ^' civil 
front,"  which  had  been  weakened  from  neglect  and  treason.  In 
the  midst  of  the  reverses  on  the  Isonzo,  the  Boselh  ministry  had 
resigned,  and  a  new  and  more  energetic  one  had  been  formed 
with  Vittorio  Orlando  as  premier  and  minister  of  the  interior, 
and  Francesco  Nitti  as  minister  of  the  treasury,  Baron  Sidney 
Sonnino  retaining  the  portfolio  of  foreign  affairs.  Under  Or- 
lando's leadership,  defeatism  was  stamped  out  of  Italy. 

The  defeatist  movement  (with  all  which  defeatism  implied 
in  Italy  and  in  France)  was  seemingly  in  191 7  a  very  grave 
obstacle  to  Allied  victory.  It  was  due,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
to  general  war  weariness  and  to  specific  discouragement  result- 
ing from  the  revolutionary  defection  of  Russia  and  the  unavoid- 
able delay  in  America.  Abetted  and  exploited  by  the  Central 
Empires,  it  might  have  proved  fatal  to  the  Allied  cause  had  not 
the  Teutons  overreached  themselves.  The  military  drive  of 
the  Austro- Germans  into  Italy  in  the  autumn  of  191 7  and  the 
peace  which  they  forced  upon  Russia  at  Brest-Li  to  vsk  and 
upon  Rumania  at  Bucharest,  sufficed  to  convince  the  bulk  of 
the  Allied  free  nations,  even  many  former  pacifists  and  *' defeat- 
ists" among  them,  that  the  Central  Empires  were  thoroughly 
dishonest  in  pretending  to  champion  *' peace  without  victory." 
Germany  was  obviously  intent  upon  ''victory  through  peace." 
And  in  this  circumstance  the  only  safe  and  sane  motto  for  the 
Allies  was  ''peace  through  victory."  It  took  a  long  time  and 
bitter  experience  to  commit  the  Alhed  peoples  to  this  view  of 
affairs,  but  it  was  a  happy  augury  of  the  future  that  early  in 
1918  they  were  so  committed.  It  was  a  happy  augury,  too,  that 
by  that  time  the  Allies  were  cooperating  with  one  another  loyally 
and  unselfishly  and  that  presiding  over  the  destinies  of  the  chief 
associated  Powers  were  such  resolute  men  as  Clemenceau,  Or- 
lando, Lloyd  George,  and  Woodrow  Wilson. 

It  was  also  a  happy  augury  of  the  future  that  at  this  very  time, 
when  the  patience  of  many  persons  had  been  exhausted  in  fruit- 
less efforts  to  obtain  any  clear  and  concise  statement  of  war 
aims  from  the  professional  diplomatists  of  Mittel-Europa, 
President  Wilson  should  set  forth  succinctly  and  eloquently  a 
code  of  Allied  war  aims.  Speaking  before  the  American  Congress 
on  January  8,  19 18,  the  President  presented  his  views  in  fourteen 


298         A  BRIEF  HISTORY   OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

points:  (i)  open  covenants  of  peace,  openly  arrived  at,  and  no 
secret  diplomacy  in  the  future ;  (2)  absolute  freedom  of  navi- 
gation in  peace  and  war  outside  territorial  waters,  except  where 
seas  may  be  closed  by  international  action;  (3)  removal  as  far 
as  possible  of  all  economic  barriers;  (4)  adequate  guarantees 
for  the  reduction  of  national  armaments;  (5)  an  absolutely 
impartial  adjustment  of  all  colonial  claims,  the  interests  of  the 
peoples  concerned  having  equal  weight  with  the  equitable  claim 
of  the  Government  whose  title  is  to  be  determined ;  (6)  all  Rus- 
sian territory  to  be  evacuated,  and  Russia  given  full  oppor- 
tunity for  self-development,  the  Powers  aiding;  (7)  complete 
evacuation  and  restoration  of  Belgium,  without  any  limit  to 
her  sovereignty;  (8)  all  French  territory  to  be  freed,  invaded 
portions  restored,  and  the  wrong  done  by  Prussia  in  187 1  in 
the  matter  of  Alsace-Lorraine  righted;  (9)  readjustment  of 
Italian  frontiers  on  lines  of  nationahty ;  (10)  peoples  of  Austria- 
Hungary  accorded  an  opportunity  of  autonomous  development ; 
(11)  Rumania,  Serbia,  and  Montenegro  evacuated,  Serbia  given 
access  to  the  sea,  and  relations  of  Balkan  States  determined  on 
lines  of  allegiance  and  nationahty  under  international  guaran- 
tees; (12).  Non-Turkish  nationalities  in  the  Ottoman  Empire 
assured  of  autonomous  development,  and  the  Dardanelles  to 
be  permanently  free  to  all  ships;  (13)  an  independent  Polish 
state,  including  territories  inhabited  by  indisputably  Pohsh 
populations  and  having  access  to  the  sea;  and  (14)  a  general 
association  of  nations  must  be  formed  under  specific  covenants 
for  the  purpose  of  affording  mutual  guarantees  of  political  inde- 
pendence and  territorial  integrity  to  great  and  small  states 
alike. 

The  celebrated  ''Fourteen  Points"  speedily  became  the  charter 
of  AUied  war  aims.  They  constituted  the  goal  throughout  1918 
of  that  way  which  the  AlHes,  despite  obstacles,  had  been  paving 
during  191 7  for  ultimate  victory. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
GERMANY   MAKES   THE   SUPREME   EFFORT 
"WHOM  THE   GODS  WOULD  DESTROY" 

Germany  was  possessed  of  madness.  It  was  her  delusions 
of  persecution  and  grandeur  which  had  been  the  immediate 
cause  of  the  Great  War  in  19 14,  and  throughout  its  subsequent 
course  she  had  harbored  in  her  disordered  mind  recurring  halluci- 
nations of  victory.  As  a  rule,  striking  feats  such  as  the  Drives 
of  Mackensen  and  Hindenburg  into  Russia  and  the  conquest 
of  Serbia  in  191 5  and  of  Rumania  in  191 6  signified  more  to  her 
than  the  uprising  of  the  whole  world  against  her,  more  than  the 
mighty  holding  battles  of  the  Marne,  of  Verdun,  of  the  Somme, 
and  of  Flanders,  more  than  the  very  real  loss  of  sea  power,  more 
even  than  the  increasingly  frightful  attrition  and  wastage  of  her 
stores  of  men  and  munitions. 

For  a  time  in  191 7  Germany's  madness  took  the  form  of 
melancholia.  She  grew  depressed  and  morose.  To  foreigners 
it  appeared  as  though  she  were  about  to  put  on  sackcloth  and 
ashes.  And  in  fact,  had  it  not  been  for  certain  external  stimuli 
which  recalled  her  earlier  madness,  she  might  conceivably  have 
passed  from  mania  through  temporary  melancholia  into  a  state 
of  mind  approaching  healthy  sanity.  There  was  a  time  in  191 7, 
it  should  be  remembered,  when  the  majority  of  the  German 
people  felt  stirrings  of  reform  and  aspirations  for  peace,  and  when 
the  Government  itself  was  coquetting  with  diplomacy  and 
making  eyes  at  democracy.  Late  in  191 7,  however,  the  Austro- 
Germans.won  a  great  military  victory  on  the  Isonzo  and  drove 
the  ItaHans  far  back  to  the  Piave,  and  at  the  same  time  Russia's 
descent  to  chaos  became  rapidly  accelerated.  German  melan- 
cholia speedily  disappeared,  and  Germany  lapsed  once  more 
into  acute  megalomania.  Every  section  of  the  country,  except 
the  Minority  Socialists,  became  converted  to  a  *'  German"  peace, 
and  the  journalists  and  the  politicians  shrieked  as  loudly  for  con- 
quest as  they  had  done  in  19 14. 

Domestic  discontents  of  the  summer  of  191 7  were  quelled  by 

299 


300         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

March,  1918.  By  this  time  German  eyes  were  bhnded  to  the 
steadily  disruptive  tendencies  in  Austria-Hungary,  to  the  cynical 
indifference  of  Bulgaria,  and  to  the  actual  dismemberment  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire;  they  still  saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  Mittel- 
Europa  stretching  in  majesty  from  the  Baltic  and  North  Seas  to 
the  ^gean  and  on  to  Mesopotamia  and  Syria,  united  in  aims, 
rich  in  resources,  and  indomitable  in  arms.  They  perceived  on 
all  sides  vanquished  and  vassal  states  —  Belgium,  Luxemburg, 
Poland,  Serbia,  Montenegro,  Rumania,  Finland,  Lettland 
(Latvia),  Lithuania,  and  Ukrainia.  They  had  just  beheld  the 
signing  of  the  treaties  of  Brest-Litovsk  and  Bucharest,  which 
formally  acknowledged  the  subjugation  of  the  whole  Russian 
Empire  and  abolished  the  entire  Eastern  Front.  They  reflected 
that  the  submarine  warfare  was  doing  its  work  rapidly  and 
effectively,  that  the  United  States  was  despatching  few  troops 
to  Europe,  and  that  England,  starved  and  bleeding,  would  soon 
sue  for  peace.  They  knew  that  Italy  was  defeated  and  on  the 
defensive.  Only  the  Western  Front  remained  an  eyesore  to  the 
Germans,  and  surely  this  one  little  spot  on  Europe's  surface 
could  now  be  quickly  cleaned  up  by  those  Teutonic  demigods 
who  had  conquered  the  rest  of  the  world. 

In  February,  1918,  Ludendorff  and  Hindenburg,  the  Thors  of 
modern  German  mythology,  met  the  Reichstag  in  secret  session 
and  explained  their  supreme  plan.  They  would  concentrate  all 
available  forces  immediately  on  the  Western  Front  and  inaugu- 
rate a  colossal  drive  against  the  French  and  British.  Simulta- 
neously the  Bulgarians  would  press  the  Allied  troops  in  Macedonia, 
and  the  Austrians  would  launch  another  offensive  against  the 
Italians ;  but  the  Western  Front  would  become  the  scene  of  the 
final,  decisive  combat.  Confession  had  to  be  made,  in  confidence, 
that  the  submarine  campaign  during  191 7  had  not  done  all  that 
had  been  expected  of  it  and  that  American  troops  could  and 
would  land  in  Europe  in  large  numbers.  But  American  troops 
must  come  slowly,  and  once  across  the  Atlantic  they  must  under- 
go thorough  training  before  they  would  be  fit  to  serve  in  front- 
line trenches.  During  the  next  six  months,  therefore,  the  French 
and  British  would  have  to  fight  their  own  battle.  But  the 
British  could  add  no  new  recruitment  of  any  appreciable  size  to 
their  forces  already  in  the  field,  —  they  were  kept  too  busy 
supplying  materiel  and  circumventing  submarines  and  coping 
with  Irish  difficulties ;  while  the  French  were  absolutely  at  the 
end  of  their  rope,  so  far  as  man  power  was  concerned,  and  their 
morale  was  thought  to  be  at  a  very  low  ebb.     On  the  other  hand, 


GERMANY   MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT       301 

Germany  could  at  once  materially  strengthen  her  armies  on  the 
Western  Front,  she  could  add  to  them  not  only  new  recruits 
from  home  and  some  divisions  withdrawn  from  Italy  and  from 
the  Balkans,  but  also  at  least  half  a  million  seasoned  veterans  no 
longer  needed  in  the  East.  Furthermore,  she  could  now  effect 
an  enormous  concentration  of  guns,  what  with  captures  from 
Italy  and  Russia,  and  those  either  released  from  the  defunct 
Eastern  Front,  or  loaned  from  Austria. 

In  view  of  these  circumstances  Ludendorff  and  Hindenburg 
promised  certain  and  complete  victory  before  the  autumn  of 
1918.  Now,  if  ever,  was  the  hour  to  strike.  Matters  should  be 
pushed.  All  the  German  armies  should  be  set  in  motion  to 
overwhelm  the  Franco-British  forces  in  the  West,  to  capture  the 
channel  ports  and  Paris,  to  put  France  out  of  the  war,  and,  in  a 
word,  to  complete  the  task  begun  in  19 14,  but  interrupted  at  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne.  It  must  be  done  in  four  months,  —  in  six 
months  at  the  outside,  —  and  it  would  be  done.  Hindenburg 
and  Ludendorff  gave  their  word  for  it.  To  be  sure,  for  such 
a  triumph  a  price  must  be  paid.  The  army  chiefs  put  it  at  a 
million  German  casualties ;  on  reconsideration,  they  increased 
their  estimate  to  a  million  and  a  half. 

To  a  nation  gone  mad  with  megalomania,  losses  of  a  million 
and  a  half  seemed  cheap  stakes  for  a  peculiarly  grand  and  glori- 
ous gamble.  The  Reichstag  applauded  the  plan.  And  when 
news  of  the  enterprise  spread  among  the  German  people,  a  wave 
of  dehrious  enthusiasm  surged  across  the  Fatherland.  Editorials 
in  the  patriotic  press  and  speeches  of  Junkers  and  bureaucrats, 
of  chancellor  and  Emperor,  assumed  a  new  and  fateful  truculence. 

So  far  as  Ludendorff  and  Hindenburg  were  concerned,  their 
madness  did  not  lack  method.  Assured  of  enthusiastic  popular 
sympathy  with  their  purpose  of  making  a  supreme  effort  to 
obtain  a  speedy  military  decision  on  the  Western  Front,  they 
proceeded  to  devise  strategic  plans  with  rare  judgment  and  dis- 
cernment. Their  main  plan  was  simplicity  itself.  They  would 
strike  with  all  their  might  at  what  was  assumed  to  be  the  weakest 
spot  in  the  Allied  line,  the  valley  of  the  Somme,  where  the  British 
forces  under  Field  Marshal  Haig  joined  the  French  forces  under 
General  Retain.  Breaking  through  at  this  pivotal  point,  they 
would  isolate  the  British  army  by  rolling  it  up  from  its  right  and 
pinning  it  to  an  intrenched  camp  between  the  Somme  and  the 
Channel.  This  done,  they  would  hold  it  with  few  troops,  swing 
round  on  the  French,  and  put  them  out  of  action.  If  all  went 
well  and  fast,  the  Americans,  by  the  time  they  were  really  ready 


302         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  assist  the  French  and  British,  would  find  no  British  or  French 
to  assist ;  they  would  not  fight  Germany  alone ;  and  they  would 
promptly  come  to  terms. 

In  carrying  out  this  major  plan  of  strategy,  the  Germans  in 
March,  1918,  possessed  four  advantages  over  the  AlHes.  In  the 
first  place,  they  enjoyed  numerical  superiority,  thanks  to  the 
transfer  of  divisions  from  Russia,  from  Italy,  and  from  the 
Balkans.  Secondly,  since  they  occupied  interior  lines  and  since 
the  most  intricate  railway  network  of  France  was  inside  their 
own  front,  they  were  in  a  better  geographical  position ;  they 
could  concentrate  at  will  in  almost  any  angle  of  the  huge  salient 
running  from  the  sea  to  La  Fere  and  from  La  Fere  to  Verdun, 
and  until  they  actually  attacked  they  could  keep  the  enemy  in 
ignorance  as  to  which  side  of  the  salient  they  proposed  to  strike ; 
simultaneously  with  the  same  force  they  could  threaten  the 
French  in  Champagne  and  the  British  in  Picardy.  Thirdly,  in 
conducting  the  offensive  the  Germans  were  subject  to  a  single 
supreme  authority,  which  could  treat  the  whole  front  as  a  unit 
and  subordinate  the  needs  of  one  sector  to  those  of  another, 
whereas  the  Allies  were  still  capable  of  that  unfortunate  fumbling 
which  must  be  a  characteristic  of  the  division  of  the  supreme 
command  between  equal  and  independent  generals  of  different 
nationality.  Finally,  the  Germans  had  developed  more  per- 
fectly than  the  AlHes  the  new  tactics  of  surprise  attack  and 
''infiltration,"  by  means  of  which  open  warfare  might  be  restored 
and  chances  increased  of  winning  an  early  decision. 

Just  what  these  new  tactics  were  upon  which  Ludendorff  relied 
for  the  success  of  Germany's  supreme  effort,  may  best  be  gathered 
from  the  interesting  description  of  them  by  an  acknowledged 
expert  and  critic :  ''The  first  point  was  the  absence  of  any  pre- 
liminary massing  of  troops  near  the  front  of  attack.  Troops 
were  brought  up  by  night  marches  only  just  before  zero  hour, 
and  secrecy  was  thus  obtained  for  the  assembly.  In  the  second 
place,  there  was  no  long  artillery  'preparation'  to  alarm  the 
enemy.  The  attack  was  preceded  by  a  sharp  and  intense  bom- 
bardment, and  the  enemy's  back  areas  and  support  lines  were 
confused  by  a  deluge  of  gas  shells.  The  assault  was  made  by 
picked  troops  (Sturmtruppen),  in  open  order,  or  rather  in  small 
clusters,  carrying  light  trench  mortars  and  many  machine  guns, 
with  the  field  batteries  close  behind  them  in  support.  The 
actual  method  of  attack  which  the  French  called  'infiltrations' 
may  best  be  set  forth  by  the  analogy  of  a  hand  whose  finger  tips 
are  shod  with  steel,  pushing  its  way  into  a  soft  substance.     The 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT       303 

picked  troops  at  the  fingers'  ends  made  gaps  through  which 
others  poured,  till  each  section  of  the  defense  found  itself  out- 
flanked and  encircled.  A  system  of  flares  and  rockets  enabled 
the  following  troops  to  learn  where  the  picked  troops  had  made 
the  breach,  and  the  artillery  came  close  behind  the  infantry. 
The  troops  had  unlimited  objectives,  and  carried  iron  rations  for 
several  days.  When  one  division  had  reached  the  end  of  its 
strength  another  took  its  place,  so  that  the  advance  resembled 
an  endless  wheel  or  a  continuous  game  of  leap-frog. 

*'This  method,  it  will  be  seen,  was  the  very  opposite  of  the  old 
German  massed  attack,  or  a  series  of  hammer  blows  on  the  one 
section  of  the  front.  It  was  strictly  the  filtering  of  a  great 
army  into  a  hostile  position,  so  that  each  part  was  turned  and  the 
whole  front  was  first  dislocated  and  then  crumbled.  The 
crumbling  might  be  achieved  by  inferior  numbers ;  the  value  of 
the  German  numerical  superiority  was  to  insure  a  complete 
victory  by  pushing  far  behind  into  unprotected  areas.  .  .  . 
Ludendorff's  confidence  was  not  ill-founded,  for  to  support  his 
strategical  plan  he  had  tactics  which  must  come  with  deadly 
effect  upon  an  enemy  prepared  only  to  meet  the  old  methods. 
Their  one  drawback  was  that  they  involved  the  highest  possible 
training  and  discipline.  Every  detail  —  the  preliminary  as- 
sembly, the  attack,  the  supply  and  relief  system  during  battle 
—  presupposed  the  most  perfect  mechanism,  and  great  initiative 
and  resource  in  subordinate  commanders.  The  German  army 
had  now  been  definitely  grouped  into  special  troops  of  the  best 
quality,  and  a  rank  and  file  of  very  little.  Unless  decisive 
success  came  at  once,  the  tactics  might  remain,  but  men  to  use 
them  would  have  gone.  A  protracted  battle  would  destroy  the 
corps  d^ elite,  and  without  that  the  tactics  were  futile."  ^ 

Having  worked  out  these  new  tactics  and  hit  upon  that 
stragetic  plan  which  admitted  of  the  fullest  utilization  of  Ger- 
man advantages  and  Allied  weaknesses,  Ludendorff  massed 
seven  powerful  armies  on  the  front  from  the  North  Sea  to  Rheims. 
These  armies  were  commanded  and  disposed  as  follows  :  (i)  Gen- 
eral Sixt  von  Arnim,  from  the  Sea  to  the  Lys ;  (2)  General  von 
Quast,  from  the  Lys  to  Arras;  (3)  General  Otto  von  Below, 
from  Arras  to  Cambrai ;  (4)  General  von  der  Marwitz,  from 
Cambrai  to  St.  Quentin ;  (5)  General  Oskar  von  Hutier,  from  St. 
Quentin  to  the  Oise ;  (6)  General  von  Boehn,  from  the  Oise  to 
Craonne ;  and  (7)  General  Fritz  von  Below,  from  Craonne  to 
Rheims.     The  first  four  were  under  the  superior  control  of  Prince 

1  John  Buchan,  Nelson's  History  of  the  War,  vol.  xxii,  p.  19. 


304         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Rupprecht  of  Bavaria  and  the  last  three  under  that  of  the  Crown 
Prince  Frederick  WilHam. 

Everything  was  in  readiness  for  Germany's  supreme  effort. 
It  was  to  be  the  mightiest  trial  by  battle  that  the  world  had  ever 
witnessed,  the  final  test  of  the  ReHgion  of  Valor.  And  so  as  not 
to  be  entirely  off  stage  in  a  modern  production  that  promised 
to  surpass  and  consummate  the  epics  and  sagas  of  primitive 
Teutonic  folk-lore,  the  War  Lord  himself,  the  Emperor  WilHam 
II,  prepared  to  betake  his  own  anointed  person  to  General 
Headquarters  at  Spa  and  thence  to  communicate  to  the  obsequi- 
ously faithful  staff  of  journalists  who  attended  him,  for  the 
edification  of  his  subjects  and  of  posterity,  his  own  inspired 
and  ecstatic  interpretations  of  the  Apotheosis  of  Might. 

But  the  histrionic  Emperor  appealed  to  popular  imagination 
in  Germany  far  less  than  the  burly  Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg. 
It  was  Hindenburg's  presence  on  the  Western  Front  which 
silenced  civilian  critics  and  keyed  up  the  morale  of  the  soldiers. 
Throughout  the  Fatherland  there  was  everywhere  expectancy 
of  big  events.  ^' Where  is  Hindenburg?"  asked  Vice- Chancellor 
Helfferich  in  an  address  on  March  i6,  1918;  ''he  stands  in  the 
West  with  our  whole  German  manhood  for  the  first  time  united 
in  a  single  theater  of  war,  ready  to  strike  with  the  strongest 
army  that  the  world  has  ever  known." 

THE   DRIVE  AGAINST  THE  BRITISH:   THE  BATTLE  OF 

PICARDY 

On  March  21,  1918,  the  Germans  began  the  great  battle 
which  military  experts  of  both  sides  believed  would  decide  the 
Great  War.  They  struck  from  points  where  the  British  lines, 
owing  to  the  uncompleted  battles  of  Flanders  and  Cambrai  and 
the  Allied  failures  at  Lens,  St.  Quentin,  and  La  Fere  in  191 7, 
were  relatively  weak  or  could  be  out-manceuvered  with  superior 
force  of  men  and  munitions.  And  while  they  struck  directly  at 
the  British,  they  opened  fire  at  long  range  on  Paris. ^ 

The  Germans  took  the  Allies  by  surprise.  Some  attack  in 
force  was  of  course  expected;  but  General  Petain  imagined  it 
would  be  directed  against  the  French  armies  in  Champagne, 

^  In  heavy  artillery  the  Germans  now  surpassed  themselves.  Three  guns,  each 
weighing  400,000  pounds  and  capable  of  hurling  330-pound  shells  some  seventy- 
five  miles,  they  emplaced  twelve  miles  northeast  of  St.  Gobain,  and  with  these  they 
opened  fire  on  Paris  on  March  23  and  subsequently  at  fairly  frequent  intervals  they 
bombarded  the  French  capital.  The  gigantic  guns  amazed  the  Allies  but  did  actual 
damage  incomniensurate  with  the  expense  incurred,  the  total  casualties  in  Paris, 
after  an  expenditure  of  about  four  hundred  shells,  numbering  only  196. 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE  SUPREME  EFFORT       305 

while  Field  Marshal  Haig  judged  from  the  preliminary  artillery 
preparations  that  it  would  be  delivered  in  the  vicinity  of  Ypres. 
The  result  was  that  neither  Haig  nor  Petain  felt  it  possible  to 


spare  troops  from  the  northern  and  eastern  sectors  to  strengthen 
the  central  sector  from  Arras  to  the  Oise.  This  sector  was  held 
from  Arras  to  St.  Quentin  by  the  Third  British  Army  under  Sir 
Julian  Byng,  and  from  St.  Quentin  to  the  Oise  by  the  Fifth  Army 
under  Sir  Hubert  Gough.     Yet  it  was  against  this  sector,  particu- 


3o6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

larly  between  Cambrai  and  the  Gise,  that  the  Germans  inaugu- 
rated their  herculean  offensive. 

The  weather  favored  the  Germans  and  their  new  ''infiltration" 
tactics  to  a  very  high  degree.  The  attack  was  launched  by  the 
troops  of  Generals  Otto  von  Below,  von  der  Marwitz,  and  von 
Hutier,  a  little  before  five  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  March  21 
under  cover  of  such  a  heavy  mist  and  fog  that  it  was  impossible 
to  see  more  than  a  hundred  feet  ahead.  The  outpost  line  was 
taken  before  the  British  were  cognizant  of  the  fact  that  the  attack 
had  begun.  The  Germans  with  their  carefully  trained  Sturmtrup- 
pen  and  with  their  tremendous  superiority  of  numbers  soon  forced 
the  British  second  line  and  rushed  on  to  the  third  and  last  line  of 
defense.     Here  again  the  inequality  of  numbers  ultimately  told. 

By  the  second  day  of  the  battle  Gough's  army,  outnumbered 
four  to  one,  lost  contact  with  the  French  on  its  right  and  gave 
way  at  several  vital  points.  Retreat  soon  became  rout  and 
what  had  been  a  discipHned  army  was  rapidly  transformed  into 
a  struggling  mass  of  disorganized  humanity.  The  Germans 
were  advancing  from  St.  Quentin  along  direct  routes  west  toward 
Amiens  and  southwest  toward  Noyon ;  it  seemed  almost  certain 
that  they  would  succeed  in  driving  a  permanent  wedge  between 
the  French  and  the  British  armies.  They  took  Peronne,  Ham, 
and  Chauny  on  March  24,  and  crossed  the  Somme ;  and  on  the 
next  day  they  occupied  Barleux,  Nesle,  and  Noyon.  Meanwhile, 
farther  north,  the  army  of  Sir  Julian  Byng  had  been  hpavily 
engaged ;  it  had  managed  to  hald  its  lines  intact  before  Arras, 
but  its  right  wing,  embarrassed  by  the  rout  of  Gough's  forces, 
had  been  obliged  to  yield  Bapaume  and  to  uncover  the  road  to 
Albert. 

March  26  was  the  decisive  day  of  the  German  effort  to  isolate 
the  British,  for  this  day  witnessed  the  closing  of  the  gap  between 
the  British  and  the  French.  A  French  army  under  General 
Fayolle  came  up  and  established  itself  along  the  Oise  and  the 
Avre,  joining  the  British  at  Moreuil,  southeast  of  Amiens.  At 
the  same  time  a  new  British  army  was  improvised  from  sappers, 
laborers,  engineers,  in  fact  anybody  that  could  be  found,  and  with 
this  curious  array  General  Sandeman  Carey  faced  the  Germans 
before  Amiens  for  six  days,  fighting  over  unknown  ground,  and 
with  officers  in  charge  of  men  whom  they  had  never  seen  before. 
Try  as  they  might,  the  Germans  could  not  capture  Amiens. 

Failure  to  capture  Amiens  left  the  Germans  in  a  rather  difficult 
position.  They  had  pushed  a  thirty-five-mile  salient  into  the 
Allied  lines,  but  the  salient,  bounded  roughly  by  the  Ancre  river  on 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT       307 

the  north  and  by  the  Avre  on  the  south,  was  too  narrow  for  com- 
fort. It  was  with  the  hope  of  broadening  the  saHent  that  the 
Germans  repeatedly  assailed  the  armies  of  General  Byng  and 
General  Fayolle.  Byng  lost  Albert  on  March  27,  and  on  the  next 
day  Fayolle  lost  Montdidier.  And  during  the  first  week  of  April 
tremendous  assaults  were  made  from  Albert  against  the  Ancre 
line  on  the  north,  and  from  Montdidier  against  the  Avre  line  on 
the  south. 

Although  local  successes  were  won  by  the  Germans,  they  were 
unable  to  achieve  their  immediate  purpose  of  widening  the 
salient  materially.  The  chief  reason  for  this  was  the  time  element 
which  had  permitted  the  British  and  French  to  bring  up  men 
and  guns  and  thus  to  stabilize  their  new  lines.  A  contributory 
reason  was  the  fact  that  heavy  rains  turned  the  Somme  battle- 
field into  a  hopeless  sea  of  mud  and  interfered  seriously  with  the 
Germans'  transport  system. 

In  the  first  phase  of  the  battle  of  Picardy,  the  Germans  had 
regained  nearly  all  the  ground  they  held  at  the  beginning  of  the 
battle  of  the  Somme  in  1916  and  besides  had  gained  approxi- 
mately 1 500  square  miles.  They  had  also  taken  90,000  prisoners, 
1300  guns,  and  100  tanks.  Though  they  had  suffered  griev- 
ously themselves,  they  had  probably  inflicted  even  heavier 
losses  upon  the  British.  But  the  main  German  plan  was  frus- 
trated, at  least  temporarily :  the  French  and  British  were  not 
separated  and  both  still  held  strong  defensive  positions. 

The  Germans,  as  soon  as  they  were  checked  before  Amiens, 
launched  a  second  gigantic  offensive  against  the  British  farther 
north,  between  Arras  and  the  high  ground  north  of  Ypres. 
Instead  of  trying  to  separate  the  French  from  the  British,  the 
plan  here  was  to  separate  the  British  army  at  Ypres,  commanded 
by  Sir  Herbert  Plumer,  from  that  at  Arras,  under  Sir  Henry 
Home.  A  successful  thrust  by  the  opposing  armies  of  Generals 
von  Arnim  and  von  Quast  would  throw  back  Home's  forces 
upon  the  British  armies  which  had  retreated  to  the  Ancre  and 
would  isolate  Plumer's  army.  Apparently  the  Germans  hoped 
to  create  a  gap  in  Home's  command,  as  they  had  recently  done 
in  Gough's  army,  and  then  pour  through  it  and  advance  to  the 
Channel.  An  advance  similar  to  that  before  Amiens  would 
result  in  the  capture  of  Calais,  one  of  the  chief  bases  of  supply 
of  the  British  armies.  Should  only  half  this  distance  be  covered, 
the  town  of  Hazebrouck  would  fall,  and  with  its  fall  Ypres 
would  become  untenable  and  the  entire  railway  system  behind 
the  British  and  Belgian  armies  would  be  dislocated. 


3o8         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE    GREAT  WAR 

On  April  9  the  Germans  attacked  a  small  sector,  held  by  a 
Portuguese  division,  between  Armentieres  and  La  Bassee, 
smashed  it  completely,  and  occupied  Richebourg  St.  Vaast  and 
Lay  en  tie.  A  gap  of  about  three  miles  was  thus  created  in  the 
British  lines,  and  through  it  poured  German  troops  in  ever- 
increasing  numbers.  On  the  next  day  they  crossed  the  river 
Lys  and  occupied  Armentieres  and  Estaires.  On  April  12  they 
took  Merville,  only  five  miles  from  Hazebrouck.  The  serious- 
ness of  the  British  position  was  reflected  by  Sir  Douglas  Haig's 
order  of  the  day :''...  Many  among  us  are  now  tired.  To 
those  I  would  say  that  victory  will  belong  to  the  side  which 
holds  out  the  longest.  .  .  .  Every  position  must  be  held  to 
the  last  man;  there  must  be  no  retirement.  With  our  backs 
to  the  wall,  and  believing  in  the  justice  of  our  cause,  each  one  of 
us  must  fight  on  to  the  end.  The  safety  of  our  homes  and  the 
freedom  of  mankind  depend  alike  upon  the  conduct  of  each  one 
of  us  at  this  critical  moment." 

The  next  few  days  witnessed  the  stabilizing  of  the  British 
lines  southeast  of  Hazebrouck  and  the  shifting  of  the  chief 
German  efforts  to  points  northeast  of  Hazebrouck.  On  April  14 
the  Germans  took  Neuve  Eglise,  close  to  Mont  Kemmel,  and 
two  days  later  they  completed  the  conquest  of  Messines  Ridge 
by  capturing  Wytschaete. 

German  occupation  of  Messines  Ridge  and  assaults  on  Mont 
Kemmel  placed  the  British  at  Ypres  in  a  precarious  position. 
In  order  to  prevent  a  serious  catastrophe,  Sir  Douglas  Haig 
directed  a  withdrawal  from  Passchendaele  Ridge,  which  had 
been  captured  by  the  British  at  a  tremendously  heavy  cost  in 
1917,^  and  which  constituted  an  exposed  salient  northeast  of 
Ypres.  The  surrender  of  Passchendaele  Ridge  was  a  terrible  blow 
to  British  pride,  but  subsequent  events  proved  that  the  resultant 
shortening  of  the  British  lines  strengthened  their  general  position. 
On  April  18-19  French  reserves  arrived,  and  the  British  lines, 
both  new  and  old,  held  against  repeated  German  onsets. 

Mont  Kemmel  was  the  scene  of  extremely  bitter  fighting  for 
three  days,  April  24-27.  The  Germans,  prodigal  of  men  as  at 
Verdun,  made  frontal  and  flank  attacks  on  the  position,  until 
by  sheer  weight  of  men  and  metal  they  compelled  the  British 
and  French  to  relinquish  the  height.  Nevertheless  the  losses 
suffered  by  General  von  Arnim's  army  were  so  great  that  he  was 
unable  to  reap  the  fruits  of  his  victory :  he  could  not  secure 
other  hills  that  belonged  to  the  same  range  as  Mont  Kemmel ; 
^  See  above,  pp.  278-280, 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT      309 

he  was  unable  further  to  endanger  Ypres.     In  the  meantime 
renewed    German   assaults   southeast   of    Hazebrouck,   in   the 


vicinity  of  Bethune,  not  only  failed,  but  were  followed  by  Allied 
counter-attacks  which  won  back  some  ground.  The  struggle 
on  this  front  died  down  by  the  middle  of  May,  191 8. 


3IO        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Thus  ended  the  second  great  German  thrust.  The  British 
again  had  suffered  grievously;  they  had  lost  Armentieres, 
Merville,  and  the  ridges  of  Messines  and  Passchendaele ;  they 
were  now  back  to  positions  which  they  had  held  after  the  first 
battle  of  Ypres  in  19 14;  of  their  holdings  at  the  close  of  191 7 
the  Germans  now  occupied  approximately  800  square  miles. 
Yet  the  Germans,  as  in  their  first  thrust  toward  Amiens,  had 
failed  to  achieve  their  real  ends :  they  had  not  isolated  any 
British  army,  or  plowed  their  way  to  the  Channel  Ports ;  the 
Allies  still  dominated  the  strategic  railway  lines  centering  in 
Ypres,  Hazebrouck,  Bethune,  Arras,  and  Amiens.  Not  even 
the  Belgian  ports  were  longer  available  as  bases  for  German 
submarines,  for,  in  the  midst  of  Ludendorff's  military  efforts,  a 
British  squadron  in  daring  fashion  had  sunk  ships  at  the  entrance 
to  the  harbors  of  Zeebrugge  (April  23)  and  Ostend  (May  10)  and 
had  thus  partially  closed  them. 

In  the  midst  of  the  great  German  drive  against  the  British, 
the  Government  at  London  took  steps  to  make  good  its  heavy 
losses  in  men  and  to  bolster  up  weakening  English  morale.  On 
April  8,  a  new  military  service  bill  was  introduced  in  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  its  third  reading  was  quickly  carried  by  a  majority  of 
198.  Thereby  military  service  was  imposed  on  every  British 
subject  who  had  been  in  Great  Britain  since  191 5  and  who  was 
between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  fifty-five;  immunity  for 
ministers  of  religion  was  withdrawn ;  and,  unlike  the  service  act 
of  1916,  this  measure  was  specifically  extended  to  Ireland. 

Thus  the  German  drive  served  to  make  British  determi- 
nation more  dogged  than  ever.  But  at  the  same  time  it  served 
to  render  more  difficult  than  ever  the  solution  of  the  already 
highly  perplexing  problem  of  Ireland.  For  Irishmen  objected 
to  conscription  —  and  with  cause.  It  will  be  recalled  that  with 
the  sanction  of  the  British  Government  an  Irish  Convention, 
representing  all  factions  of  the  unhappy  island  except  the 
Sinn  Fein,  had  met  at  Dublin  in  July,  191 7,  under  the  chair- 
manship of  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  in  an  endeavor  to  reach  an 
agreement  on  the  home-rule  question.^  The  report  of  the  Con- 
vention's recommendations  was  made  pubhc  in  April,  191 8,  in 
three  separate  documents :  the  proposals  for  a  scheme  of  Irish 
self-government,  adopted  by  44  to  29 ;  a  vehement  dissenting 
statement  by  nineteen  Ulster  Unionists ;  and  a  minority  report 
of  twenty-two  Nationalists,  who  were  unable  to  indorse  the 
majority's    fiscal    recommendations.     The    general    scheme    of 

^  See  above,  pp.  262-263. 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME   EFFORT       311 

proposed  home  rule  was  accepted  by  practically  all  the  National- 
ists, all  the  Southern  Unionists,  and  five  out  of  seven  Labor 
delegates ;  only  the  Ulster  Unionists  were  intransigeant.  Be- 
cause of  the  attitude  of  the  latter,  however,  the  British  Govern- 
ment at  once  rejected  the  Convention's  recommendations  and 
declared  that  it  itself  would  proceed  to  fashion  a  new  home-rule 
instrument,  in  the  meantime  applying  the  service  act  to  Ireland. 
Immediately  there  was  a  hue  and  cry.  The  vast  majority  of 
Irishmen  felt  that  again  they  had  been  duped  by  the  British 
Government,  that  again  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  English 
Unionists  and  Sir  Edward  Carson's  Ulster  garrison,  and  that 
again  they  were  to  be  forced  to  fight  for  a  Britain  which  per- 
sisted in  denying  them  rights  enjoyed  by  Canadians  and  Austral- 
ians and  Boers.  Nationalist  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
ostentatiously  quit  Parliament,  and  at  a  meeting  in  Dublin  on 
April  20  adopted  a  resolution  affirming  that  the  enforcement  of 
compulsory  military  service  on  a  nation  without  its  assent  con- 
stituted ''one  of  the  most  brutal  acts  of  tyranny  and  oppression 
of  which  any  Government  can  be  guilty."  On  the  same  day 
fifteen  hundred  Labor  representatives  met  in  Dublin  and  pledged 
their  resistance  to  conscription.  Two  days  earlier  the  Catholic 
bishops  at  a  meeting  in  Maynooth  had  condemned  the  injustice 
of  forcing  conscription  upon  a  people  without  that  people's 
sanction  and,  while  warning  against  rebellion  or  violence,  had 
directed  their  priests  to  administer  an  anti-conscription  oath  to 
the  laity  on  Sunday,  April  21.  This  oath  was  duly  taken  by  all 
classes  of  Catholic  Ireland,  including  lawyers,  bankers,  and 
merchants,  as  well  as  farmers  and  workmen.  Thus  it  transpired 
that  all  factions  of  Irishmen  except  the  group  of  Ulster  Unionists 
were  united  on  a  common  platform  and  that  Catholic  bishops, 
Laborites,  and  Nationalists,  —  most  of  whom  had  been  whole- 
heartedly loyal  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  —  now  stood  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  Sinn  Feiners  in  opposing  the  increase,  at  Ire- 
land's expense,  of  British  armies  on  the  Continent.  John  Dillon, 
the  new  Nationalist  leader,  joined  hands  with  Eamonn  de 
Valera,  the  leader  of  the  Sinn  Fein. 

Faced  by  the  imminence  of  rebellion,  the  British  Government 
by  an  order-in-council  suspended  indefinitely  the  application 
of  the  Service  Act  to  Ireland  and  at  the  same  time  postponed 
the  formulation  of  any  scheme  of  home  rule.  The  results  were 
painful  and  unfortunate  in  the  extreme.  Premier  Lloyd  George 
stated  on  May  2  that  "the  difficulties  have  not  been  rendered 
easier  of  settlement  by  the  challenge  to  the  supremacy  of  the 


312         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

United  Kingdom  Parliament  which  recently  was  issued  by  the 
Nationalist  Party  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy  in  concert 
with  the  leaders  of  the  Sinn  Fein";  and  throughout  England 
the  Irish  were  accused  of  base  ingratitude  and  of  treason  to  the 
Allied  cause.  Taking  their  cue  from  the  attitude  of  English 
officials,  the  Ulster  Unionists,  under  the  guidance  of  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  became  more  truculent  than  ever  toward  the  grant  of 
home  rule  in  any  form.  On  the  other  hand,  the  bulk  of  Irish- 
men were  not  mollified  by  the  appointment,  on  May  5,  of  Field 
Marshal  Viscount  French,  a  notorious  Unionist  and  ''strong- 
arm"  man,  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  their  country,  nor  by  the 
military  and  police  coercion  under  which  their  administration  was 
now  conducted ;  from  support  of  the  moderate,  pro-war  National- 
ists and  a  program  of  autonomy,  they  rapidly  veered  toward 
support  of  the  radical,  anti-war  Sinn  Feiners  and  a  program  of 
complete  independence.  Between  England  and  Ireland,  and 
between  Ulsterites  and  other  Irishmen,  the  breach  had  been 
widened  and  deepened. 

The  great  German  drive  of  March  and  April  against  the 
British  led,  however,  not  only  to  an  unhappy  resuscitation  of 
Irish  troubles,  not  only  to  courageous  efforts  on  the  part  of 
Englishmen,  Scotchmen,  and  Welshmen  to  increase  their  own 
man  power  at  the  front,  but  also  to  the  taking  of  a  step  of  the 
utmost  practical  significance  to  all  the  Allies.  It  was  the  uni- 
fication of  the  Allied  command  in  France.  That  such  a  step 
had  long  been  highly  desirable  admitted  of  no  doubt,  but  it  was 
difficult  so  long  as  British  and  French  commanders  —  to  say 
nothing  of  Italian  generals  —  were  jealous  of  each  other.  Ever 
since  the  United  States  had  entered  the  war,  President  Wilson 
had  urged  upon  the  Allies  unity  of  command  as  well  as  the  pool- 
ing of  resources,  but  beyond  a  meeting  of  the  Inter-Allied  Con- 
ference and  the  creation  in  November,  191 7,  of  a  Supreme  War 
Council,  with  strictly  advisory  functions,  little  in  this  direction 
had  been  accomplished. 

When  the  Germans  launched  their  huge  offensive  in  March, 
1918,  General  Pershing  promptly  offered  the  American  troops 
then  in  France  to  the  Allies  for  use  in  any  way  they  saw  fit, 
either  to  be  used  as  an  independent  unit,  or  to  be  broken  up 
and  brigaded  with  the  British  or  the  French,  or  both.  This 
self-effacement  of  the  American  commander,  coupled  with  the 
defeat  of  General  Gough's  army  and  the  resultant  grave  danger 
to  the  whole  Allied  Front,  finally  overruled  the  last  objection  of 
the  British  General  Staff  and  the  British  public.     On  March  25, 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE  SUPREME  EFFORT       313 

1 91 8,  Lord  Milner  and  M.  Clemenceau  and  Sir  Henry  Wilson  met 
Sir  Douglas  Haig  and  General  Petain  at  DouUens,  midway  be- 
tween Amiens  and  Arras.  That  conference,  held  amid  the  con- 
fusion of  retreat  and  under  imminence  of  dire  disaster,  marked 
in  a  real  sense  the  turning-point  of  the  Great  War.  The  pro- 
posal for  a  supreme  commander-in-chief,  for  a  generalissimo  of 
all  the  Allied  forces,  strongly  put  forward  by  Clemenceau  and 
Milner,  was  welcomed  by  Haig  and  Petain. 

For  the  new  post  there  could  be  but  one  choice  —  Ferdinand 
Foch.  He  was  by  universal  consent  the  master  mind  among  the 
Allied  generals.  He  was  the  most  learned  and  scientific  soldier 
in  Europe,  and  his  greatness  in  the  field  had  been  amply  demon- 
strated in  the  battles  of  the  Marne  and  of  Flanders  in  19 14, 
and  in  the  battle  of  the  Somme  in  191 7.  On  March  26  it  was 
announced  that  this  short,  grizzled,  deep-eyed  man  of  sixty-five 
had  assumed  supreme  control  of  the  Allied  forces  in  the  West. 
Haig  and  Petain  and  Pershing  became  his  lieutenants,  and  thence- 
forth the  Allied  Front  in  France  and  Belgium  could  be  treated 
as  a  whole  and  reserves  could  be  dispatched,  regardless  of 
nationality,  from  one  sector  to  another,  whithersoever  at  the 
moment  they  were  most  needed. 

It  was  the  unifying  of  the  Allied  command  which  contributed 
potently  to  checking  the  German  offensive  against  the  British 
both  at  Amiens  and  at  Ypres  and  Hazebrouck  and  to  preventing 
Ludendorff  from  isolating  the  British  from  the  French  and  forc- 
ing the  former  back  to  the  Channel.  But  the  supreme  test  of 
Foch's  generalship  was  to  come  later. 

THE  DRI\TE  AGAINST  THE   FRENCH:    THE  AISNE  AND 

THE  OISE 

Ludendorff  had  promised  his  fellow-countrymen  that  their 
supreme  effort  on  the  Western  Front  would  bring  decisive  victory 
within  four  or  six  months.  So  far,  in  the  two  months  from 
March  21  to  May  21,  some  progress  had  been  made  toward  the 
realization  of  his  promise.  A  big  salient  had  been  driven  into 
the  British  lines  between  Arras  and  La  Fere,  and  a  smaller  salient 
had  been  made  between  Arras  and  Ypres.  German  casualties 
in  the  offensive  against  the  British  already  totaled  half  a  million, 
but  these  were  only  a  half  or  third  of  what  Ludendorff  had  indi- 
cated as  the  price  of  victory.  He  still  had  numerical  superiority 
of  effectives ;  he  was  still  operating  on  interior  lines ;  the  advan- 
tage of  the  offensive  was  still  his.     Just  as  he  had  devoted  two 


314         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

months  to  demoralizing  the  British  and  compelling  the  French 
to  weaken  their  own  Unes  in  order  to  send  reserves  to  a  hard- 
pressed  ally,  so  now  he  would  consecrate  a  month  or  two  to 
denting  French  defenses,  destroying  French  morale,  and  driving 
a  big,  broad  salient  into  central  France.  Then,  when  all  enemies 
were  reduced  to  impotence  by  his  sudden,  fearful  thrusts,  he 
could  easily  crown  a  marvelous  campaign  by  occupying  Paris 
and  the  Channel  Ports.  There  was  intense  jubilation  in  Ger- 
many as  there  was  genuine  alarm  in  Allied  countries. 

The  terrain  selected  by  Ludendorff  as  the  starting-point  for 
his  decisive  drive  against  the  French  was  the  heights  of  the  Aisne, 
which  had  already  been  the  scene  of  great  battles  in  19 14  and 
1917.-^  This  area  was  nearest  to  Paris;  it  was  also  the  gate  to 
the  Marne,  and  an  advance  beyond  that  river  would  cut  the 
Paris- Chalons  railway  and  imperil  the  whole  French  front  in 
Champagne  and  in  the  Argonne.  Accordingly,  the  armies  of 
General  von  Boehn  and  General  Fritz  von  Below,  lying  between 
Laon  and  Rheims,  were  rapidly  raised  in  strength  until  they 
comprised  some  forty  divisions,  twenty-five  for  the  first  wave 
and  fifteen  in  reserve.  And  a  great  concentration  of  guns  and 
munitions  was  effected. 

Never,  perhaps,  during  the  whole  campaign  did  the  huge  Ger- 
man war  machine  move  so  noiselessly  and  so  fast.  On  the 
evening  of  Sunday,  May  26,  all  was  quiet  in  the  menaced  area. 
Then  at  one  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Monday,  May  27,  a 
staccato  bombardment  began  everywhere  from  the  Ailette  to 
the  suburbs  of  Rheims.  At  four  o'clock  the  infantry  advanced, 
and  in  an  hour  or  two  had  swept  the  French  from  the  crest  of  the 
ridge  north  of  the  Aisne.  The  odds  were  too  desperate,  and  the 
few  French  divisions,  taken  by  surprise,  had  no  choice  but  to 
retreat.  By  nightfall  General  von  Boehn's  troops  had  crossed 
the  Aisne  and  reached  the  Vesle  at  Fismes.  They  had  taken 
large  numbers  of  prisoners  and  an  immense  store  of  booty,  and 
in  the  center  they  had  advanced  twelve  miles. 

Yet  there  was  danger  in  thrusting  too  narrow  a  salient  into 
the  French  lines ;  and  advantageous  further  advance  of  the  Ger- 
man center  must  depend  upon  the  ability  of  the  flanks  to  advance 
also.  Consequently,  during  the  ensuing  days  the  Germans 
attempted  to  widen  as  well  as  deepen  the  saHent :  General  Foch, 

^  There  is  evidence  to  show  that  Ludendorff  himself  was  opposed  to  the  drive 
on  the  Aisne,  preferring  to  press  the  offensive  against  Amiens.  He  seems  to  have 
been  persuaded  by  political  factors  to  abandon  his  original  plan  and  to  strike 
towards  Paris. 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME   EFFORT       315 

on  his  side,  hastily  threw  in  reserves  with  a  view  not  so  much 
to  staying  German  progress  south  from  Fismes  as  to  strengthen- 
ing the  French  positions  at  Rheims  on  the  east  and  Soissons  on 
the  west. 

After  a  stubborn  defense,  Soissons  fell  on  May  29;  and  the 
German  center  rushed  on  from  Fismes  to  the  watershed  between 
the  Vesle  and  the  Ourcq  and  Marne.  By  the  next  day  the  Ger- 
man center  stood  on  the  Marne  from  Chateau-Thierry  to  Dor- 
mans,  a  distance  of  about  ten  miles,  but  to  the  northwest  the 
utmost  difficulty  was  experienced  by  the  right  flank  in  debouch- 
ing from  Soissons,  while  to  the  northeast  the  left  flank  battered 
in  vain  at  the  gates  of  Rheims. 

Though  they  failed  absolutely  to  widen  the  Marne  salient 
on  the  east,  the  Germans  succeeded,  after  extremely  bitter  and 
sanguinary  fighting,  in  advancing  some  six  miles  down  the  Ourcq, 
as  far  as  the  village  of  Troesnes;  and  they  likewise  enlarged 
slightly  their  holdings  west  of  Chateau-Thierry.  Early  in  June, 
however,  French  counter-attacks  not  only  halted  the  German 
drive  westward  but  actually  recovered  some  ground.  On  June  6, 
American  troops,  cooperating  with  the  French,  gained  two 
miles  on  a  three-mile  front  northwest  of  Chateau-Thierry ;  at  a 
most  critical  moment  these  Americans  appeared  as  a  singularly 
ill  omen  to  Teutonic  projects.  Would  they  come  in  force  before 
Ludendorff  could  bring  France  and  England  to  terms  ? 

Loudly  the  Germans  acclaimed  the  achievement  of  their 
latest  drive.  To  date  they  had  taken  55,000  prisoners  and  650 
guns ;  they  had  occupied  650  square  miles  of  territory  and  had 
established  another  salient,  this  time  at  French  expense,  thirty 
miles  deep ;  they  had  lessened  the  distance  of  their  lines  from 
Paris  from  sixty-two  miles  to  forty-four.  But  Ludendorff  knew 
that  the  salient  from  the  Aisne  to  the  Marne  was  highly  pre- 
carious ;  it  was  peculiarly  exposed  to  a  flanking  movement  from 
Compiegne ;  and  it  simply  had  to  be  widened,  strongly  fortified, 
or  abandoned. 

Consequently  Ludendorff  resorted  to  the  plan  of  linking  up 
the  Marne  salient  with  the  Amiens  salient  which  in  March  he  had 
thrust  into  the  British  lines.  If  he  could  execute  this  plan,  he 
would  wipe  out  the  huge  bulge  in  his  own  line  and  capture  the 
strategically  important  town  of  Compiegne;  and  the  river 
valleys  of  the  Aisne,  Oise,  Marne,  and  Ourcq  would  then  be 
available  for  a  final  converging  attack  upon  Paris,  the  nerve 
center  of  France. 

General  von  Hutier's  army,  concentrated  between  Montdidier 


3i6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

and  Noyon,  opened  an  intense  bombardment  in  the  early  morning 
of  June  9,  and  at  dawn  attacked  with  fifteen  divisions  on  a  front 
of  twenty-five  miles.  On  most  of  the  front  von  Hutier  failed, 
for  there  was  no  element  of  surprise,  and  Foch  was  ready  for  him. 
The  total  advance  on  the  first  day  was  three  miles  and  was  only 
attained  after  frightful  losses.  On  the  next  day  the  Germans 
advanced  about  three  miles  farther  and  captured,  after  grave 
losses,  a  few  little  villages.  The  Teuton  penetration  was  now 
about  five  or  six  miles,  and  this  was  approximately  the  depth  of 
their  entire  advance.  The  struggle  was  one  of  dogged  resistance 
on  the  part  of  the  French,  and,  for  the  Germans,  the  slowest 
and  costliest  progress,  very  different  from  the  Aisne  offensive  a 
fortnight  earlier.  By  June  13  von  Hutier 's  effort  on  the  Oise 
practically  ceased. 

In  the  meantime,  American  troops  had  been  very  active  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Chateau-Thierry.  On  June  10  they  moved 
forward  in  the  Belleau  Wood  and  by  the  next  day  had  captured 
all  of  it.  They  also  crossed  the  Marne  at  Chateau-Thierry  on 
scouting  expeditions. 

After  von  Hutier  had  failed  to  reach  Compiegne  and  thus  to 
widen  the  Marne  salient  on  the  west,  General  Fritz  von  Below 
on  June  18  made  a  desperate  assault  upon  the  defenses  of  Rheims, 
hoping  thereby  to  enlarge  the  sahent  to  the  east.  Though  en- 
circled by  assailants  on  three  sides,  Rheims  held  out  most  stoutly 
during  the  engagement,  much  aided  by  the  fact  that  the  French 
held  the  great  massif  of  the  Montague  de  Rheims  to  the  south 
and  southwest. 

For  the  better  part  of  a  month  after  the  unsuccessful  attack 
upon  Rheims,  comparative  silence  fell  upon  the  Western  Front. 
It  was  obvious  that  Ludendorff  was  preparing  still  another 
mighty  blow.  It  was  obvious  too  that  the  Alhes  were  utiUzing 
their  respite  to  the  full :  their  armies  were  growing  daily  as  the 
Americans  came  into  fine,  and  their  commanders  were  concert- 
ing strategy  and  tactics  wherewith  they  hoped  soon  to  transfer 
the  initiative  from  the  Teutons  to  themselves.  Already  the 
German  casualties  were  mounting  fast  to  the  limit  which  Luden- 
dorff had  named  as  the  price  of  victory ;  already  three  months 
had  passed  by  of  the  four  which  he  had  set  as  a  time-limit. 
The  next  drive  would  in  all  probabiHty  be  the  last  for  the 
Germans.  Meanwhile,  the  Austrians  would  make  their  ulti- 
mate drive  against  the  Italians. 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT       317 


THE  DRIVE  AGAINST  THE  ITALIANS:    THE   PIAVE 

Externally  the  condition  of  Austria-Hungary  seemed  auspi- 
cious in  the  spring  of  19 18.  Her  own  territories  were  free  of 
foreign  invaders  not  only,  but  she  was  in  military  possession  of 
Montenegro,  a  large  part  of  Serbia  and  Albania,  and  a  liberal 
slice  of  northeastern  Italy,  and  the  treaties  of  Brest-Litovsk 
and  Bucharest  had  relieved  her  of  the  necessity  of  maintaining 
a  battle-front  in  Russia  and  Rumania.  But  internally  the 
situation  was  growing  steadily  worse.  Austria-Hungary  had 
never  had  any  true  national  unity,  and  the  separatist  ambitions 
of  her  subject  peoples  had  been  waxing  as  the  central  authority 
waned.  Mihtary  and  diplomatic  successes  had  not  served  to 
feed  the  hungry  or  to  save  the  starving,  and  large  sections  of  the 
population  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  were  on  the  verge  of  starvation. 
Allied  propaganda  was  doing  its  work:  there  were  frequent 
mutinies  among  Czechoslovak  and  Jugoslav  regiments;  there 
were  daily  desertions  both  at  the  front  and  on  the  march. 

One  hope  remained  to  the  Emperor  Charles  and  his  Govern- 
ment. It  was  that  the  Great  War  might  be  ended  before  de- 
moraHzation  should  find  its  sequel  in  disintegration  and  ruin. 
For  a  time  in  191 7  the  Emperor,  supported  by  Count  Czernin, 
his  crafty  foreign  minister,  had  hoped  to  end  the  war  and  save  his 
dominion  by  means  of  separate,  stealthy  negotiations  with  the 
Entente.  His  duplicity  having  been  discovered  at  Berlin,  how- 
ever, he  was  compelled  to  part  with  Czernin  in  April,  19 18,  and  to 
reappoint  as  foreign  minister  the  more  strenuously  pro- German 
Baron  Burian.  And  lest  the  Entente  might  continue  to  cherish 
the  notion  that  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  weakening  in  her  loyalty 
to  Germany,  the  Emperor  Charles  was  obKged  further  to  humble 
himself,  to  pay  an  ostentatious  visit  to  the  Emperor  William  II, 
and  to  conclude  with  him  on  May  12  a  renewal  and  extension 
of  the  alliance  between  their  countries.  Henceforth  Austria- 
Hungary  was  even  more  dependent  than  formerly  on  the  good 
graces  and  mihtary  might  of  Germany ;  with  anxiety  the  govern- 
ing classes  at  Vienna  and  Budapest  now  watched  the  progress  of 
Ludendorff's  supreme  effort  in  France. 

But  Ludendorff  had  told  the  Austrian  authorities  in  no  un- 
certain terms  that,  while  he  strained  every  nerve  to  overwhelm 
the  British  and  the  French,  they  themselves  would  be  expected 
to  put  Italy  out  of  the  war.  This  they  must  do  unaided,  be- 
cause he  needed  all  German  troops  in  the  West;  but  this  they 
could  do,  because  they  now  enjoyed  the  great  prestige  and  the 


3i8 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


advantage  of  position  which  had  been  acquired  as  results  of  the 
successful  Teutonic  drive  of  the  preceding  November  from  the 
Isonzo  to  the  Piave,  and  because  they  were  now  unhampered  by 
miUtary  exigencies  on  any  other  frontier.  If  they  could  vanquish 
the  ItaUans  finally,  they  would  confer  inestimable  favors  upon 
the  cause  of  Mittel-Europa  and  they  would  be  promoting  im- 
measurably the  stability  of  the  Dual  Monarchy. 

So  the  Austrians  set  to  work  preparing  a  supreme  offensive 
against  Italy.  They  brought  reenforcements  from  the  East 
and  collected  a  large  store  of  guns  and  material.  They  mem- 
orized and  rehearsed  the  new  German  tactics  of  ''surprise"  and 
*' infiltration."  And  they  worked  out  an  admirable  plan  of 
strategy :  Field  Marshal  von  Hoetzendorf ,  commanding  in  the 
Tyrol,  was  to  break  through  the  AlHed  positions  on  the  Asiago 
Plateau,  and  at  Monte  Grappa  and  Monte  Tomba,  and  then 


march  down  the  Brenta  valley,  and  take  the  Italian  armies  along 
the  Piave  on  the  flank  or  in  the  rear ;  simultaneously,  General 
Boroevic  was  to  seize  the  hill  called  the  Montello,  which  lay 
roughly  at  the  angle  between  the  north  and  northeastern  sectors, 
where  the  Piave  leaves  the  mountainous  country  for  the  Venetian 
plain,  and  to  *' infiltrate"  among  the  Italian  defenders  of  the 
Piave,  thereby  directly  menacing  Venice. 

On  June  15,  1918,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  Austrian 
*' preparation"  began  on  the  whole  front,  and  at  seven  o'clock 
the  infantry  charged,  principally  in  two  areas  —  in  the  plains 
on  the  twenty-five  mile  line  between  the  Montello  and  San  Dona 
di  Piave,  and  in  the  hills  on  the  eighteen  miles  between  Monte 
Grappa  and  Canove.  But  Diaz,  the  Italian  commander,  was 
not  *' surprised " ;  his  troops  were  ready  and  also  his  reserves; 
and  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  Austrian  generals  knew 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME   EFFORT       319 

the  theory  of  ''infiltration"  better  than  their  soldiers  knew  its 
practice.  Hoetzendorf's  advance  was  checked  almost  at  the 
outset,  and  within  two  days  the  ItaUans,  with  .the  aid  of  French 
and  British  detachments,  had  recovered  all  the  ground  lost  in 
the  mountains  and  some  besides. 

Boroevic  was  a  little  more  successful  along  the  Piave.  His 
troops  effected  crossings  of  the  river  at  several  points  and  seized 
the  eastern  end  of  the  Montello,  while  lower  down  the  Piave,  in 
the  vicinity  of  San  Dona,  they  advanced  five  miles  west  of  the 
river.  On  June  18,  however,  two  events  occurred  of  great  im- 
portance. One  was  the  arrival  of  Diaz's  reenforcements  and  the 
resultant  halting  of  the  Austrian  advance.  The  other  was  a 
heavy  downpour  of  rain  which  rendered  the  Piave  a  swollen 
flood  and  thus  cut  off  the  Austrians  on  the  western  bank  of  the 
river  and  at  the  same  time  enabled  Itahan  monitors  of  light 
draft  to  go  up  the  river  and  shell  the  Austro-Hungarian  positions. 
Five  days  later  General  Diaz  inaugurated  against  the  isolated 
Austrians  a  counter-offensive,  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of 
4500  prisoners.  By  the  first  week  in  July,  the  Italians  not  only 
had  driven  General  Boroevic's  forces  back  to  their  old  positions, 
but,  in  some  places,  had  secured  ground  which  had  been  lost  in 
191 7,  notably  the  delta  at  the  mouth  of  the  Piave. 

The  result  of  the  drive  against  the  Italians  was  that  the 
Austrians  had  gained  nothing.  Actually  they  had  been  com- 
pelled to  yield  ground,  and  this  with  a  loss  to  themselves  of 
some  20,000  prisoners,  seventy-five  guns,  and  at  least  150,000 
casualties.  They  had  failed  grotesquely,  and  their  offensive 
power  was  at  an  end.  Their  morale  was  hopelessly  lowered,  and 
domestic  revolt  threatened.  More  than  ever  was  Germany 
left  to  continue  the  struggle  alone. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Italians  were  jubilant.  They  had 
avenged  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the  preceding  year,  and  their 
achievement  strengthened  their  own  morale  not  only,  but  of 
their  allies  also.  Allied  faith  needed  a  sign,  for  at  this  very 
moment  Ludendorff 's  Final  Drive  was  impending. 

Despite  Austrian  failure,  the  Germans  had  not  yet  lost  faith 
in  Ludendorff's  abihty  to  obtain  a  mihtary  decision.  Only 
Richard  von  Kiihlmann,  the  German  Foreign  Secretary,  ex- 
pressed doubt ;  *'  the  end  of  the  war,"  he  said  before  the  Reichs- 
tag, on  June  24, ''  can  hardly  be  expected  through  purely  military 
decisions  alone,  and  without  recourse  to  diplomatic  negotiations." 
For  such  faint-heartedness  Kiihlmann  was  scathingly  assailed 
by  the  Pan- Germans  and  Junkers ;   he  resigned  on  July  9,  and 


320 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


was  succeeded  by  Admiral  von  Hintze.  Jove-like  Ludendorff 
was  not  to  be  hindered  by  cringing  diplomatists  from  hurling  his 
last  mighty  thunder-bolt. 

THE  FINAL  GERMAN  DRIVE:   THE   SECOND  BATTLE  OF 
THE   MARNE 

At  midnight  on  Sunday,  July  14,  1918,  the  anniversary  of  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille,  Parisians  heard  the  booming  of  great  guns. 
At  first  they  thought  it  another  air  raid,  but  the  blaze  in  the 
eastern  sky  showed  that  business  was  afoot  on  the  battlefield. 
Then  they  knew  that  the  last  phase  had  begun  of  the  struggle 
for  Teutonic  domination  of  their  city  and  of  their  country. 

For  a  month  and  more,  ever  since  the  cessation  of  the  drives 
from  the  Aisne  and  the  Gise,  Ludendorff  had  been  making  final 
preparations  to  achieve  the  victory  which  he  had  promised  the 
German  people.  He  had  collected  every  reserve  from  every 
front  on  which  there  were  German  troops.  He  had  overworked 
his  whole  transport  system  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  bring  up  all 
available  guns  and  munitions.  His  plan  was  to  strike  out  from 
the  uncomfortable  salient  in  which  von  Boehn  had  been  en- 
trapped, press  across  the  Marne,  and  cut  the  important  lateral 
railway  from  Paris  to  Nancy.  Simultaneously  von  Mudra 
(who  had  succeeded  Fritz  von  Below)  and  von  Einen,  with 
their  armies,  were  to  advance  east  of  Rheims  between  Prunay 
and  the  Argonne.  In  this  way  Rheims  would  be  enveloped  and 
the  French  front  would  be  broken  beyond  hope  of  repair.  While 
von  Mudra  and  von  Einen,  with  the  aid  of  German  armies  in 
Lorraine  and  in  Alsace,  ground  the  eastern  forces  of  the  French 
to  bits  on  the  fortresses  along  the  Meuse,  von  Boehn  would 
march  on  Paris  down  the  valley  of  the  Marne.  At  the  right 
moment,  when  the  fate  of  the  capital  hung  in  the  balance,  von 
Hutier  and  von  der  Marwitz  would  break  through  the  Amiens- 
Montdidier  lines  and  descend  on  Paris  from  the  north.  Then 
would  Haig  be  finally  separated  from  Petain,  and  Petain's 
armies  would  be  severed,  and  Foch,  the  generalissimo  of  a  lost 
cause,  would  be  faced  by  defeat  complete  and  cataclysmic,  and  a 
German  peace  would  be  imposed  on  the  AlHes.  To  this  end, 
the  coming  struggle  was  popularly  styled  in  Germany  the 
Friedensturm,  the  ''peace  offensive "  ;  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick 
WiUiam  was  put  in  nominal  charge  of  it,  and  afar  off  the  Emperor 
WiUiam  II  assumed  a  most  theatrical  pose.  Everything  was 
in  readiness  to  resume  the  Battle  of  the  Marne  where  it  had  been 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE  SUPREME   EFFORT      321 

broken  off  in  September,  19 14.  Ludendorff  was  a  better  strate- 
gist than  Moltke  had  been,  and  the  Germans  had  learned  many 
valuable  lessons  in  four  years ;  on  the  other  hand  it  was  assumed 
that  most  of  the  French  reserves  had  already  been  exhausted, 
and  that  what  few  Americans  had  arrived  were  too  untrained 
to  be  dangerous. 

At  dawn  on  July  15,  19 18,  the  German  infantry  advanced 
to  the  attack.  Von  Boehn  was  immediately  successful.  His 
troops  crossed  the  Marne  at  various  points  between  Chateau- 
Thierry  and  Dormans,  reached  the  heights  on  the  south  bank, 
and  in  the  course  of  the  day  gained  one  to  three  miles  on  a  front 
of  twenty-two.  Yet  they  failed  to  widen  the  salient:,  on  the 
southeast  an  ItaUan  corps  effectually  barred  the  way  to  Epernay ; 
on  the  southwest,  in  the  vicinity  of  Chateau-Thierry,  American 
soldiers  stubbornly  contested  the  ground.  These  Americans, 
constituting  the  right  wing  of  the  French  army  of  General 
Degoutte,  first  checked  the  German  wave  at  Vaux  and  Fossoy, 
and  then  rolled  it  back,  clearing  that  part  of  the  south  bank  of 
the  Marne  and  taking  600  prisoners.  Such  American  behavior 
was  ominous. 

East  of  Rheims  von  Mudra  and  von  Einen  encountered  un- 
expected opposition  from  the  French  under  General  Gouraud. 
Gouraud's  counter-bombardment  dislocated  the  German  attack 
before  it  began,  and  his  swift  counter-attacks  checked  their 
*' infiltration"  before  it  could  be  set  going.  By  dint  of  the  ut- 
most effort  the  Germans  occupied  the  towns  of  Prunay,  Auberive, 
and  Tahure ;  further  they  could  not  go  ;  Rheims  they  could  not 
capture  or  isolate.  By  the  third  day  of  the  offensive,  von  Einen 
and  von  Mudra  were  utterly  exhausted. 

South  of  the  Marne  and  southwest  of  Rheims,  von  Boehn  on 
July  16  and  17  pushed  hard  toward  Epernay.  Yet  he  too  used 
up  his  reserves  in  vain.  At  the  farthest  point  his  advance  was 
only  six  miles  beyond  his  original  position.  On  July  18  the 
aspect  of  the  whole  front  was  altered,  when  the  French  and 
Americans  began  an  offensive  on  their  own  account  from  the 
Marne  to  the  Aisne,  which  was  highly  successful,  and  which 
changed  a  dangerous  situation  for  the  Allies  into  a  more  dangerous 
one  for  the  Germans. 

Before  Ludendorff  had  launched  the  final  German  drive,  on 
July  15,  General  Foch  was  considering  a  scheme  of  counter- 
attack drawn  up  by  General  Retain  in  conference  with  Generals 
Mangin,  Fayolle,  and  Degoutte.  It  was  planned  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  narrowness  of  the  German  salient  on  the  Marne,  and, 

Y 


322         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

while  von  Boehn  was  struggling  to  widen  it  to  the  east,  to  assail 
it  from  the  west  between  Soissons  and  Chateau-Thierry.  For 
this  purpose  vast  quantities  of  suppHes  were  stored  up  in  the 
Villers  Cotterets  Forest,  and  a  great  reserve  army,  the  possibiHties 
of  which  the  Germans  had  scarcely  foreseen,  was  gathered  to- 
gether. 

The  chief  factor  in  General  Foch's  decision  to  inaugurate  a 
counter-offensive  at  once  was  the  unexpectedly  prompt  arrival 
and  efficient  training  of  American  troops.  At  first  the  Allies  as 
well  as  the  Germans  had  been  prone  to  overestimate  the  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  the  early,  active  participation  of  the  United  States 
in  the  war.  It  was  hoped  by  the  Germans,  and  feared  by  the 
Allies,  that  the  ruthless  submarine  warfare  would  hamper  seri- 
ously the  transportation  of  American  troops  to  France  and  that 
such  troops  as  might  reach  Europe  could  not  be  relied  upon  for 
front-line  fighting  because  of  their  notorious  lack  of  training  and 
experience.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  submarine  warfare  was  at 
no  time  insurmountable,  and  in  1918,  thanks  to  the  Anglo- 
American  sea  patrol  and  to  German  discouragement,  it  was  be- 
coming rapidly  less  effective  :  against  losses  to  Allied  and  neutral 
shipping  in  the  second  quarter  of  191 7  totaling  two  and  a  quarter 
million  tons  must  be  set  the  combined  losses  of  1,150,000  tons  in 
the  first  quarter  of  1918,  and  950,000  in  the  quarter  from  April 
to  June,  1 9 18,  while  during  the  same  period  the  shipbuilding 
programs  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  steadily 
grew  until  in  1918  the  merchant  vessels  launched  far  exceeded 
in  tonnage  those  destroyed.  Moreover,  Europe  was  astonished 
by  the  speed  and  safety  with  which  American  troops  were  trans- 
ported across  the  Atlantic.  During  the  seven  months  of  191 7, 
from  June  to  December,  the  number  of  American  soldiers  arriving 
in  Europe  averaged  27,000  a  month;  from  January  to  March, 
1918,  the  average  was  60,000 ;  and  as  soon  as  Germany  put  forth 
her  supreme  effort  against  the  British  and  French,  the  United 
States  performed  almost  a  miracle  in  rushing  men  to  the  defense 
of  the  Allies — -117,000  came  in  April,  244,000  in  May,  and 
276,000  in  June.  By  July,  1918,  more  than  a  million  American 
troops  were  in  France. 

No  less  astounding  than  the  speedy  arrival  of  the  Americans 
was  the  quickness  with  which  they  proved  themselves  real 
warriors.  Training  begun  in  the  United  States  was  completed 
in  Europe ;  and  in  April,  191 8,  the  First  Division  had  manned  a 
sector  of  the  front  northwest  of  Montdidier.  On  May  28  this 
division  had  signalized  the  first  American  military  success  in  the 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE   SUPREME  EFFORT       323 

Great  War,  by  capturing  the  village  of  Cantigny ;  and  in  June 
the  Second  Division  by  their  effective  work  in  the  Belleau  Woods 
and  near  Chateau-Thierry  had  aided  materially  in  checking  the 
Teutonic  drive  from  the  Aisne  to  the  Oise.  Even  these  successes, 
however,  did  not  fully  convince  the  AlHed  generals  that  the  bulk 
of  the  American  troops  were  yet  fit  for  major  operations,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  supreme  effort  of  the  Germans  on  the  Marne  in 
July,  when  the  French  were  in  dire  need  of  reenforcements  and 
when  General  Pershing  insisted  that  his  soldiers  could  and  must 
be  used,  that  General  Foch,  relying  upon  the  Americans  as  well 
as  upon  French  and  British,  ordered  the  counter-offensive. 

On  July  18,  Franco- American  troops,  under  the  command  of 
Generals  Mangin  and  Degoutte,  attacked  on  a  twenty-eight  mile 
front  from  a  point  west  of  Soissons  to  Chateau-Thierry  on  the 
Marne.     The  assault  was  made  without  artillery  preparation,  the 


Scene  of  the  Last  German  Offensive  :   the  Second  Battle  of  the  Marne 


advancing  infantry  being  protected  by  large  numbers  of  tanks 
and  a  creeping  barrage.  It  took  the  Germans  by  surprise,  and, 
as  a  result  of  it,  General  Mangin's  forces  between  the  Aisne  and 
the  Ourcq  advanced  five  miles  and  reached  the  heights  south 
of  Soissons,  while  General  Degoutte's  army,  between  the  Ourcq 
and  the  Marne,  captured  Torcy  and  threatened  Chateau-Thierry. 
Chateau-Thierry  was  evacuated  on  July  21,  and  on  the  same 
day  Franco-American  troops  crossed  the  Marne  and  advanced 


324        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

three  or  four  miles  toward  the  Ourcq.  The  Germans  were  in 
retreat  but  they  were  fighting  stubbornly  as  they  went.  On 
July  28  the  AlHes  crossed  the  Ourcq  and  took  Fere-en-Tardenois. 
Most  bitterly  did  the  Prussian  Guards  contest  further  advance 
north  of  the  Ourcq :  Sergy  and  Seringes  changed  hands  several 
times  before  remaining  in  the  possession  of  the  victorious  Ameri- 
cans. On  August  3  the  French  reentered  Soissons  in  triumph, 
and  on  the  next  day  the  AlHes  recovered  more  than  fifty  villages, 
including  Fismes.  The  Germans  were  now  completely  behind 
the  Aisne-Vesle  line.  Their  supreme  effort  had  been  a  gigantic 
failure.  In  two  weeks  the  AlHes  had  recovered  the  districts  of 
Valois  and  Tardenois  and  taken  more  than  40,000  prisoners.  On 
August  6,  1918,  General  Foch  was  named  a  marshal  of  France, 
''in  order  to  consecrate  for  the  future,"  said  Premier  Clemenceau, 
*'  the  authority  of  the  great  soldier  who  is  called  to  lead  the  armies 
of  the  Entente  to  final  victory." 

The  Second  Battle  of  the  Marne,  like  the  First,  was  a  great 
AlHed  victory.  In  both  combats  the  Germans  had  made  des- 
perate attempts  to  overwhelm  and  crush  the  French  armies  and 
to  occupy  Paris ;  in  both  they  had  been  decisively  beaten.  But 
to  the  Teutons  the  Second  battle,  in  1918,  was  far  more  disastrous 
than  the  First  battle,  in  1914.  In  September,  19 14,  the  AlHes 
were  so  exhausted  that  they  could  not  press  their  advantage; 
the  Germans  could  intrench  themselves  on  the  heights  of  the 
Aisne  and  hold  their  lines  intact  in  France  and  Belgium  while 
they  proceeded  to  punish  Russia.  And  the  Allies,  short  of  men 
and  short  of  munitions,  had  to  resign  themselves  unwillingly  to  a 
four  years'  vigil  along  a  far-flung  battle  front.  Now,  however, 
in  August,  1918,  the  Germans  had  shot  their  last  bolt.  They  had 
suffered  terrible  losses ;  they  had  no  more  reenforcements  to 
bring  on  from  Russia  or  any  other  place;  they  were  at  last, 
thanks  to  their  foolhardiness  in  bringing  the  United  States  into 
the  war,  outnumbered  and  outmanoeuvered.  Their  munitions 
were  of  inferior  quality ;  their  air  service,  at  least  on  the  British 
front,  was  distinctly  inferior ;  their  supply  system  was  in  con- 
fusion ;  their  generals  were  discredited.  Henceforth  there  could 
be  no  more  German  offensives.  It  was,  in  fact,  very  doubtful 
whether  the  Germans  could  make  a  defensive  stand. 

The  Allies,  flushed  with  victory,  did  not  rest  from  their  labors 
when  they  had  checked  Ludendorff's  last  drive  and  had  turned 
it  back  across  the  Marne.  They  did  not  stop  short  even  with  the 
recovery  of  what  they  had  lost  in  his  earHer  drive  from  the  Aisne. 
The  offensive,  of  which  they  had  been  deprived  from  March  to 


GERMANY  MAKES  THE  SUPREME  EFFORT      325 

July,  19 18,  they  would  now  resume,  and  they  would  press  it 
until  Mittel-Europa  sued  for  peace.  In  AlHed  countries  defeat- 
ism disappeared  and  martial  enthusiasm  ran  high.  In  the  Cen- 
tral Empires,  on  the  other  hand,  popular  morale  decHned  rapidly, 
for  people  who  had  been  assured  of  a  triumphant  peace  within 
four  months  had  now  to  face  the  prospect  of  a  peace  imposed 
not  by  them  upon  their  enemies  but  by  their  enemies  upon  them. 
It  was  a  prospect  hitherto  almost  inconceivable  to  the  German 
mind.  Yet  such  was  the  amazing  turn  of  fortune  in  July,  19 18, 
that  whereas  four  months  earlier  Ludendorff  had  appeared  as 
the  dictator  of  Europe,  four  months  later  he  and  his  Hohenzollern 
master  were  to  be  dishonored  fugitives  even  from  the  Fatherland. 
The  Second  Battle  of  the  Marne  was  the  beginning  of  the  end. 
They  that  had  taken  the  sword  were  about  to  perish  by  the 
sword. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND   CENTRAL   EUROPE  REVOLTS 
ALLIED   VICTORIES   IN  THE   WEST 

With  the  wiping  out  of  the  German  sahent  from  the  Marne  to 
the  Aisne  in  July  and  early  August,  1918,  Marshal  Foch  had 
reaped  the  first  fruits  of  the  Allied  offensive,  but  it  was  not  his 
plan  to  allow  any  rest  or  respite  to  the  harassed  and  discouraged 
Germans.  On  August  8  he  struck  his  second  great  blow  in  an 
endeavor  to  ''pinch"  the  extended  German  salient  in  Picardy, 
reaching  out  toward  Amiens.  First  the  British  under  General 
Rawlinson  and  the  French  under  General  Debeney  attacked  the 
Germans  on  the  southern  side  of  the  salient,  just  south  of  the 
Somme  river,  and  in  three  days  drove  them  back  fifteen  miles 
in  some  places  and  an  average  of  ten  miles  along  the  entire  line. 
Montdidier  was.  retaken  on  August  10,  and  before  the  end  of  the 
month  Roye  and  Noyon  were  recovered.  In  the  meantime,  the 
French  under  General  Mangin  assailed  the  Germans  on  the  line 
from  the  Gise,  near  Ribecourt,  to  the  Aisne,  near  Soissons,  while 
the  British  under  General  Byng  successfully  struck  the  northern 
side  of  the  Picardy  salient,  making  notable  gains  and  inflicting 
heavy  losses  upon  the  enemy.  Bapaume  was  regained  on 
August  29,  and  Peronne  on  September  i.  Farther  north,  in 
Flanders,  the  British  army  of  General  Plumer  launched  an  offen- 
sive in  August  against  the  salient  between  Arras  and  Ypres  and 
crowned  its  efforts  on  the  first  day  of  September  by  compelHng 
the  Germans  to  evacuate  Mont  Kemmel. 

By  the  end  of  August  the  results  of  Marshal  Foch's  energetic 
offensive  were  already  appreciable.  Since  the  middle  of  July  the 
Allies  had  captured  130,000  prisoners,  2000  heavy  guns,  and 
14,000  machine  guns,  and  had  wrested  from  the  Germans  the 
greater  part  of  the  territory  conquered  by  the  latter  in  the  sen- 
sational and  sanguinary  drives  of  the  spring.  The  Teutons 
were  now  in  most  places  back  on  the  Hindenburg  Line,  and  their 
morale  had  suffered  a  blow  from  which  it  was  destined  not  to 
recover.     That  300,000  fresh  American  troops  were  pouring  into 

326 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     327 

France  every  month  was  the  chief  of  the  fateful  factors  in  Ger- 
man defeat  and  AlHed  triumph. 

The  German  Government  was  fully  alive  to  the  situation  and 
thoroughly  alarmed.  A  secret  conference  of  civil  and  miUtary 
officials,  held  at  General  Headquarters  at  Spa  on  August  14, 
under  the  presidency  of  Emperor  William  II,  concluded  from 
clear  evidence  at  hand  that,  contrary  to  Ludendorff's  earlier 


«7^^A!:::}rr 


SCALE  OF  MILES 
0      Si&      50  100 


^MEDITERRANEAN    SEA 

WHS.EN6.C0.,N.y. 


Principal  Changes  in  Western  Front  from  August,  19 14,  to  November, 

1918 

assurances,  Germany  could  no  longer  hope  to  win  the  war ;  she 
must  initiate  peace  negotiations  with  the  Entente  Powers.  It 
would  take  time  to  formulate  new  peace  proposals,  to  secure 
the  sanction  of  Austria-Hungary,  to  present  them  through  a 
neutral  Power  to  the  Allies,  and  to  obtain  final  acceptance. 
During  this  delay  attempts  must  be  made,  by  means  of  false 
statements  and  high-flown  proclamations,  to  buoy  up  the  soldiers 
at  the  front  and  the  civiHans  at  home,  for  otherwise  there  would 
be  real  danger  of  a  poHtical  and  social  revolution  in  Germany. 


328         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

To  keep  the  armies  intact  and  in  possession  of  a  large  part  of 
their  former  conquests  in  Belgium  and  France  seemed  to  be  the 
best  guarantees  against  revolution  at  home  and  against  a  dis- 
astrous and  crushing  peace  abroad.  On  this  point  Field  Marshal 
von  Hindenburg,  Chancellor  von  HertHng,  and  the  Emperor 
himself  were  agreed.  Ludendorff  himself  was  inclined  to  be 
panicky. 

The  AUies  were  at  this  time  in  ignorance  of  the  conference 
at  Spa  and  of  its  momentous  decisions.  But  they  were  in  no 
frame  of  mind  to  help  the  Teutonic  authorities  stave  off  revolu- 
tion and  obtain  more  favorable  peace  terms.  And  Marshal 
Foch  was  not  the  man  to  give  an  enemy  any  rest.  What  had 
been  in  July  and  August  mere  drives  against  German  saKents 
were  enlarged  under  his  direction,  in  September,  into  a  vast 
battle  covering  the  whole  Western  Front  from  the  North  Sea  to 
the  Meuse  River.  It  was  his  purpose,  by  means  of  numerous 
offensives  at  various  points,  to  force  the  Teutons  to  evacuate  the 
line  which  they  had  spent  years  in  intrenching  and  fortifying  and 
which,  comprising  successive  positions  that  depended  on  one 
another,  extended  from  Dixmude,  through  Lens,  Queant,  Cam- 
brai,  St.  Quentin,  La  Fere,  north  of  Rheims,  and  across  Cham- 
pagne and  the  Argonne,  to  the  Meuse,  and  was  supported  in  the 
rear  by  the  three  mighty  camps  of  Lille,  Laon,  and  Metz. 

The  first  days  of  September  were  utilized  by  the  French, 
British,  and  American  armies  in  pressing  the  pursuit  of  the 
Germans  and  in  liberating  the  territory  up  to  the  Hindenburg 
Line,  in  Picardy,  between  the  Oise  and  the  Aisne,  and  south  of 
the  Aisne.  At  the  same  time  British  troops  under  General 
Home,  east  of  Arras,  vigorously  assailed  the  lines  between 
Drocourt  and  Queant  which  constituted  one  of  the  most  for- 
midable sectors  of  the  German  front.  After  some  of  the  bit- 
terest fighting  of  the  war,  the  British  broke  the  line  and  pene- 
trated six  miles  along  a  front  of  more  than  twenty.  Queant  was 
taken  by  storm,  together  with  a  dozen  towns  and  villages.  In 
this  operation  alone  more  than  10,000  prisoners  were  captured. 
Lens  was  evacuated  by  the  Germans  on  September  4,  and  the 
British  settled  down  to  a  slow  but  steady  advance  toward 
Cambrai. 

Then  quickly,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  long  battlefield,  east 
of  the  Meuse  in  the  plain  of  the  Woevre,  began  an  American 
offensive  movement  against  the  St.  Mihiel  salient,  which  was  a 
relic  of  German  successes  in  the  early  months  of  the  war.  On 
September  12,  after  four  hours'  bombardment,  American  infantry 


AIXIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     329 


under  General  Pershing  assailed  the  southern  and  western  flanks 
of  the  saUent.     The  chief  resistance  was  in  the  west,  where  the 


German  positions  were  defended  by  the  heights  on  the  edge  of  the 
Woevre.  Nevertheless  so  impetuous  and  so  unflinching  was  the 
attack,  that  on  the  second  day  the  forces  advancing  from  the 


330         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

south  and  from  the  west  met  at  VigneuUes,  and  the  St.  Mihiel 
salient  was  no  more.  By  this  blow  seventy  villages  were  de- 
Hvered  and  nearly  175  square  miles  of  territory;  16,000  prisoners 
were  taken,  and  450  guns ;  the  great  French  railway  system 
running  through  Verdun,  Toul,  and  Nancy  was  freed ;  a  stra- 
tegically important  position  was  obtained  from  which  subse- 
quently an  offensive  might  be  launched  against  Metz  and  the 
iron  fields  of  Briey ;  and  the  Germans  were  shown  in  most  dis- 
quieting manner  that  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  had 
reached  a  stage  of  development  where  it  could  be  depended  upon 
by  the  Allies  to  take  full  and  decisive  share  in  the  war. 

Ever  bolder  and  more  determined  and  more  varied  grew  the 
Allied  offensives.  The  Germans  could  no  longer  risk  the  trans- 
fer of  troops  from  one  sector  to  another ;  everywhere  they  were 
worn  out  and  exhausted.  Hardly  had  the  St.  Mihiel  salient 
fallen  when  the  Teutons  found  themselves  assailed  simultane- 
ously on  five  main  sectors:  (i)  on  September  18,  the  British 
army  of  General  Rawlinson  and  the  French  army  of  General 
Debeney,  under  the  superior  command  of  Field  Marshal  Haig, 
inaugurated  an  offensive  against  St.  Quentin,  which  resulted  in 
the  capture  of  that  town  on  October  i ;  (2)  on  September  27,  the 
British  Generals  Byng  and  Home  moved  against  Cambrai, 
occupying  it  on  October  9 ;  (3)  on  September  28,  King  Albert 
and  his  Belgians,  aided  by  a  French  army  under  General  De- 
goutte  and  the  British  army  of  General  Plumer,  struck  out 
between  Dixmude  and  Ypres,  and  while  the  Belgians  got  close  to 
Roulers,  the  British  recovered  Passchendaele,  advanced  on 
Menin,  and  threatened  Lille ;  (4)  on  September  28,  the  French 
army  of  General  Mangin  pushed  back  the  Germans  between  the 
Oise  and  the  Aisne  and  regained  the  Chemin  des  Dames ;  and  (5) 
on  September  26  an  offensive  of  the  utmost  significance  was 
begun  on  both  sides  of  the  Argonne,  from  the  Meuse  to  Rheims, 
American  troops  attacking  east  of  the  Argonne  and  in  the  valley 
of  the  Meuse,  and  French  forces  under  Generals  Gouraud  and 
Berthelot  cooperating  with  them  to  the  west,  in  Champagne. 

In  all  these  sectors  the  Allies  made  rapid  progress  despite 
stubborn  resistance  and  repeated  counter-attacks  on  the  part 
of  the  Teutons.  By  the  end  of  September  the  Allied  armies  had 
captured  from  the  Germans,  since  the  turn  of  fortune  on  the 
Marne  (July  18),  5500  officers  and  almost  a  quarter  of  a  million 
men,  besides  enormous  quantities  of  guns  and  munitions  and 
stores.  On  September  30  the  demoralization  of  Germany  was 
strikingly  manifested  by  the  resignation  of  Hertling  as  Imperial 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     331 

Chancellor  and  prime  minister  of  Prussia  and  by  the  succession 
to  his  important  positions  two  days  later  of  Prince  Maximilian 
of  Baden  who  had  been  a  Liberal  critic  of  recent  governmental 
policies.  Under  Prince  Max,  Dr.  W.  S.  Solf,  the  colonial  secre- 
tary, was  named  foreign  secretary,  and  a  coalition  ministry  was 
formed  of  which  two  Socialist  deputies,  Scheidemann  and  Bauer, 
and  two  Centrist  deputies,  Groeber  and  Erzberger,  were  mem- 
bers. In  an  address  to  the  Reichstag,  the  new  chancellor  set 
forth  his  program  as  foUows :  adherence  to  the  principles  set 
forth  in  the  reply  to  the  Pope's  note  of  August  i,  1917 ;  a  dec- 
laration that  Germany  is  ready  to  join  a  league  of  nations  if  it 
comprises  all  states  and  is  based  on  the  idea  of  equality ;  a  clear 
statement  of  purpose  to  restore  Belgium;  repudiation  of  peace 
treaties  already  concluded,  if  necessary  to  effect  a  general  peace ; 
Alsace-Lorraine  to  be  an  autonomous  state  within  the  Empire; 
radical  electoral  reform  to  be  carried  out  immediately  in  Prussia ; 
strict  observance  of  ministerial  responsibility  to  the  duly  elected 
representatives  of  the  nation;  the  rules  as  to  the  state  of  siege 
to  be  amended  in  order  to  assure  freedom  of  meeting  and  of 
press  as  well  as  all  other  personal  liberties. 

In  October  the  new  Government  of  Prince  Max  appealed 
direct  to  President  Wilson  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities.  In  this 
course  it  was  heartened  by  an  address  delivered  by  the  American 
president  at  New  York  on  September  27,  in  which  the  purposes  of 
the  war  had  been  restated  and  five  principles  laid  down  for 
the  foundation  of  a  League  of  Nations : 

^' First,  the  impartial  justice  meted  out  must  involve  no 
discrimination  between  those  to  whom  we  wish  to  be  just  and 
those  to  whom  we  do  not  wish  to  be  just.  It  must  be  a  justice 
that  plays  no  favorites  and  knows  no  standard  but  the  equal 
rights  of  the  several  peoples  concerned ; 

*' Second,  no  special  or  separate  interest  of  any  single  nation 
or  any  group  of  nations  can  be  made  the  basis  of  any  part  of  the 
settlement  which  is  not  consistent  with  the  common  interest  of  all ; 

"Third,  there  can  be  no  leagues  or  alliances  or  special  cove- 
nants or  understandings  within  the  general  and  common  family 
of  the  League  of  Nations ; 

"Fourth,  and  more  Specifically,  there  can  be  no  special,  selfish 
economic  combinations  within  the  League  and  no  employment 
of  any  form  of  economic  boycott  or  exclusion  except  as  the  power 
of  economic  penalty  by  exclusion  from  the  markets  of  the  world 
may  be  vested  in  the  League  of  Nations  itself  as  a  means  of 
discipline  and  control ; 


332        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OP  THE  GREAT  WAR 

''Fifth,  all  international  agreements  and  treaties  of  every  kind 
must  be  made  known  in  their  entirety  to  the  rest  of  the  world." 

Throughout  October  a  series  of  diplomatic  notes  was  ex- 
changed between  the  United  States  and  Germany,  the  latter 
being  gradually  led  to  perceive  that  no  cessation  of  hostilities 
would  be  recommended  by  President  Wilson  to  the  Entente 
Powers  until  its  Government  had  agreed  unreservedly  to  accept 
the  ''Fourteen  Points"  of  the  President's  address  of  January  8, 
1918,  as  well  as  his  address  of  September  27,  to  put  a  stop  to 
unrestricted  submarine  and  other  ruthless  warfare,  to  evacuate 
occupied  foreign  territories,  and  to  guarantee  the  destruction  of 
autocracy  and  militarism  in  Germany. 

It  was  both  President  Wilson's  diplomacy  and  Marshal  Foch's 
continuous  military  blows  that  eventually  caused  Germany  to 
yield  to  the  inevitable.  Throughout  October,  while  negotia- 
tions were  proceeding  between  the  American  president  and  the 
German  chancellor,  the  Allied  armies  forged  steadily  ahead  and 
the  Teutonic  forces  reeled  back  before  their  onsets.  In  Flanders 
the  group  of  Belgo-Franco-British  armies  renewed  their  attacks 
on  October  14  on  a  vast  front  from  Dixmude  to  the  Lys  and  in 
the  next  few  days  took  Roulers,  Menin,  and  Courtrai,  thereby 
obliging  the  Germans  to  evacuate  Douai,  Lille,  and,  soon  after- 
wards, Tourcoing  and  Roubaix.  In  Belgium  the  progress  of 
King  Albert's  victorious  soldiers  continued :  Ostend  and  Bruges 
were  reentered,  then  Zeebrugge ;  the  suburbs  of  Ghent  and  the 
Dutch  frontier  were  reached ;  the  Lys  was  crossed.  On  October 
21  the  British  assailed  the  Germans  east  of  Denain  and  cap- 
tured Valenciennes  on  November  2  and  Landrecies  two  days 
later.  Maubeuge  fell  on  November  9,  and  on  November  11, 
the  last  day  of  fighting,  the  British  gained  Mons,  the  scene  of 
their  defeat  and  retreat  in  August,  19 14. 

In  the  meantime,  farther  south  the  French  under  General 
Mangin  had  broken  the  strong  "Hunding  Line"  of  the  Germans 
between  the  Oise,  the  Serre,  and  the  Aisne,  and  by  November  8 
they  were  at  the  outskirts  of  Mezieres  on  the  Franco-Belgian 
frontier,  while  east  of  the  Argonne  Forest  the  Americans  smashed 
their  way  through  the  supposedly  impregnable  "Kriemhilde 
Line,"  which  extended  across  the  Meuse  from  Grand  Pre  to 
Damvillers,  and  reached  Sedan  on  November  6.  At  the  same 
time  General  Gouraud,  west  of  the  Argonne,  advanced  through 
Champagne,  capturing  Vouziers  and  Rethel,  and  effecting  a 
juncture  with  the  forces  of  General  Mangin  near  Mezieres  on 
November  11. 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     333 

The  Franco-American  advance  in  the  Champagne-Argonne- 
Meuse  region  threatened  to  cut  the  main  line  of  communications 
between  Germany  and  her  armies  in  Belgium  and  northern 
France,  so  that  even  if  the  Allied  armies  had  elsewhere  been  less 
successful  than  they  actually  were,  Germany  would  have  been 
doomed  to  decisive  defeat  in  a  very  short  time.  The  Germans 
thoroughly  understood  the  strategic  importance  of  the  Meuse 
valley,  and  in  this  valley  occurred  during  October  and  early 
November  some  of  the  fiercest  fighting  of  the  war.  Much  of  the 
fighting  was  hand  to  hand,  and  the  nature  of  the  ground,  with 


jc/ur  o^  MiLti 


The  Franco-American  Offensive  on  the  Meuse  and  in  the  Argonne 


its  ravines  and  gullies  and  woods,  made  it  necessary  to  wipe  out 
machine-gun  nests  with  infantry  rather  than  with  artillery. 
Yet  the  Americans,  as  well  as  the  French,  acquitted  themselves 
most  admirably  in  this  difficult,  last  campaign  of  the  Great  War. 
The  Americans  captured  26,000  prisoners  and  468  guns;  the 
French  took  about  30,000  prisoners  and  700  guns.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  the  Germans,  in  their  unsuccessful  efforts  to  defend 
their  main  line  of  communications,  lost  150,000  men. 

From  July  18  to  November  11,  191 8,  Allied  arms  were  uni- 
formly and  continuously  victorious  in  all  parts  of  the  Western 
Front.     The  Teutons  were  crowded  almost  completely  out  of 


334         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

France  and  deprived  of  a  considerable  portion  of  Belgium.  The 
Great  War  was  practically  at  an  end,  for  by  November  all  other 
fronts  —  the  Italian,  the  Macedonian,  the  Turkish,  and  the 
Russian  —  had  crumbled,  and  Germany's  partners  in  the  enter- 
prise of  Mittel-Europa  had  surrendered  unconditionally  to  the 
triumphant  Allies.  Germany  had  staked  everything  on  the 
Western  Front,  and  Germany  had  lost. 

ALLIED  INTERVENTION  IN  RUSSIA 

Germany,  it  will  be  recalled,  had  concluded  the  peace  of 
Brest-Litovsk  with  the  Bolshevist  Government  of  Russia  in 
March,  1918.  At  that  time  the  treaty  was  advantageous  to 
Germany  in  three  ways.  First,  it  enabled  her  to  transfer  the 
bulk  of  her  armed  forces  from  the  Eastern  Front  and  to  make  her 
supreme  effort  in  the  West.  Second,  it  promised  to  supply  her 
in  the  not  too  distant  future  with  much  needed  foodstuffs  and 
with  raw  materials  and  markets  for  her  manufactures.  Third, 
it  afforded  her  the  opportunity  to  draw  into  the  orbit  of  Mittel- 
Europa  a  number  of  new  quasi-independent  states,  such  as 
Ukrainia,  Lithuania,  Esthonia,  Latvia,  and  Finland,  from  which 
she  hoped  to  conscript  reserves  of  soldiers  as  well  as  to  obtain 
economic  support  and  political  prestige. 

Consequently,  from  March  to  July,  1918,  while  the  German 
General  Staff  was  devoting  its  chief  attention  and  energy  to  pre- 
paring and  launching  successive  mighty  offensives  on  the  Western 
Front  against  the  British  and  the  French,  the  German  Govern- 
ment was  not  altogether  unmindful  of  the  situation  in  the  East. 
In  the  name  of  upholding  and  enforcing  the  treaty  of  Brest- 
Litovsk  German  troops  remained  on  Russian  soil,  cooperating 
now  with  the  Ukrainians,  now  with  the  Lithuanians,  now  with 
the  White  Guards  in  Finland,  now  with  the  Turks  in  the  Cau- 
casus and  the  region  north  of  the  Black  Sea. 

In  Ukrainia  German  soldiers  backed  Skoropadsky's  dicta- 
torial regime  with  bayonets  and  suppressed  peasants'  revolts 
against  it.  In  Latvia  and  Esthonia,  German  landlords  were 
encouraged  to  declare  the  independence  of  the  Baltic  provinces 
and  then  to  beg  Germany's  ^'protection."  In  May  Emperor 
William  II  formally  recognized  Lithuania  as  a  free  and  sovereign 
state  on  the  basis  of  the  action  of  a  provisional  government 
which  in  the  preceding  December  had  proclaimed  ^'the  restora- 
tion of  Lithuania  as  an  independent  state,  alHed  to  the  German 
Empire  by  an  eternal,  steadfast  alliance,  and  by  conventions 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     335 

chiefly  regarding  military  matters,  traffic,  customs,  and  coinage," 
but  William's  declaration  significantly  assumed  that  Lithuania 
would  ''participate  in  the  war  burdens  of  Germany,  which  se- 
cured her  liberation."  In  June  German  officers  took  charge  of 
the  Finnish  army  and,  after  deposing  General  Mannerheim,  the 
patriotic  Finnish  commander  of  the  White  Guards,  and  sup- 
pressing insurrection  and  imprisoning  numerous  socialists  and 
radicals,  prepared  to  transform  Finland  into  a  monarchy  under  a 
German  prince  and  in  close  alHance  with  the  German  Empire. 

Moreover,  German  army  officers  proceeded  to  collect  Austrian 
and  German  ex-prisoners  of  war,  recently  released  from  prison- 
camps  in  Russia,  and  to  utiHze  them  in  overrunning  parts  of 
Russia  in  which,  according  to  the  letter  of  the  treaty  of  Brest- 
Litovsk,  Germany  had  no  right  whatsoever  to  interfere.  Thus, 
in  the  spring  of  1918,  Germans  in  cooperation  with  the  Turks 
were  rendering  the  Black  Sea  an  interior  lake  of  Mittel-Europa  : 
the  Turks  occupied  Russian  Armenia,  Georgia,  and  other  dis- 
tricts of  the  Caucasus,  inflicting  unspeakable  atrocities  upon  the 
population,  while  the  Teutons  seized  the  ports  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Black  Sea  and  a  large  strip  of  territory  adjacent 
thereto.  And  far  away,  in  Siberia,  bands  of  Teuton  ex-pris- 
oners were  possessing  themselves  of  the  railways  and  other  trade 
routes  and  Hkewise  of  valuable  stores  of  munitions  and  food- 
stuffs. 

Against  these  flagrant  aggressions  the  Russian  Soviet  Govern- 
ment at  Moscow  protested  bitterly  and  repeatedly,  but  in  vain. 
By  playing  the  lamb  at  Brest-Litovsk  the  Bolsheviki  had  not 
tamed  the  Hon ;  and  when  the  lamb  attempted  to  lie  down  with 
the  lion,  a  not  unusual  fate  overtook  the  lamb.  Germany  was 
devouring  Russia,  and  Russia  was  helpless.  The  Bolsheviki 
were  confronted  by  chaos  at  home  as  well  as  in  foreign  relations. 
By  their  repudiation  of  the  Russian  debt,  by  their  radical  social- 
istic ventures,  and  by  their  separate  peace  with  the  Central 
Empires,  they  had  flouted  and  alienated  the  Entente  Powers, 
so  that  from  the  AlKes  they  could  expect  little  aid  or  sympathy 
in  their  hour  of  need.  And  constituting  as  they  did  but  a 
minority  of  the  Russian  people,  they  could  hope  to  bring  order 
out  of  chaos  and  still  maintain  themselves  in  power  only  if  they 
accepted  a  partnership  with  the  Germans.  The  Bolshevist 
leaders  "recognized  that  their  sycophancy  to  Germany  invited 
counter-attacks  upon  them  by  the  Allies,  but  for  the  present  the 
results  of  German  hostility  appeared  more  real  and  more  men- 
acing.    As  Lenin  stated  before  the  Central  Executive  Com- 


336        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

mittee  of  the  Soviets  in  May  :  *' We  shall  do  the  little  we  can,  all 
that  diplomacy  can  do,  to  put  off  the  moment  of  attack.  .  .  . 
We  shall  not  defend  the  secret  agreements  which  we  have  pub- 
lished to  the  world;  we  shall  not  defend  a  'Great  Power,'  for 
there  is  nothing  of  Russia  left  but  Great  Russia,  and  no  national 
interests,  because  for  us  the  interests  of  the  world's  socialism 
stand  higher  than  national  interests.  We  stand  for  the  defense 
of  the  socialistic  fatherland."  Lenin  professed  belief  that  the 
defense  of  Soviet  Russia  was  facilitated  by  what  he  termed  *'the 
profound  schism  dividing  the  capitalistic  governments,"  by 
the  fact  that  ''the  German  bandits"  were  pitted  against  ^'the 
EngHsh  bandits,"  and  that  there  were  economic  rivalries  between 
''the  American  bourgeoisie"  and  "the  Japanese  bourgeoisie." 
"The  situation  is,"  he  explained,  "that  the  stormy  waves  of  im- 
perialistic reaction,  which  seem  ready  at  any  moment  to  over- 
whelm the  little  island  of  the  Soviet  SociaKst  RepubKc,  are 
broken  one  against  another." 

For  the  present,  however,  Lenin  had  to  swallow  his  pride  and 
restrain  his  rhetoric.  The  Germans  were  still  conquering  ter- 
ritories in  France,  and  in  Russia  they  were  still  sitting  squarely 
in  the  saddle.  Against  the  potent  spurs  of  the  All-Highest 
German  Kaiser,  mere  diplomacy  was  exceedingly  thin  protection 
to  the  Bolshevist  brute.  Under  Teutonic  direction  and  dom- 
ination, and  chiefly  to  Teutonic  advantage,  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment was  forced  in  June  to  sign  humihating  treaties  with  Ukrai- 
nia  and  Finland.  Lenin  even  had  to  acquiesce  in  the  "self- 
determination"  of  White  Russia,  a  few  of  whose  people,  in  an 
assembly  controlled  by  German  agents,  proclaimed  (May  24, 
1918)  an  "independent  repubhc"  in  federal  union  with  Lithu- 
ania and  under  the  protection  of  the  German  Empire. 

Yet  Germany  was  not  altogether  successful  in  her  efforts  to 
exploit  Russia  politically  and  economically.  The  former  empire  of 
the  Tsar  was  too  extensive  and  too  varied,  and  the  Revolution  had 
already  introduced  too  much  chaos  into  Russian  politics  and 
Russian  industry,  to  admit  of  speedy  and  simple  exploitation 
by  any  foreign  Power.  The  Soviet  Government  might  promise, 
under  German  pressure,  to  perform  valuable  services,  but  it  was 
one  thing  to  promise  and  another  thing  to  perform ;  and  with  a 
steadily  diminishing  production  of  soil  and  mill  and  mine,  the 
Bolsheviki  had  the  utmost  difficulty  in  supplying  the  needy 
population  of  Great  Russia  with  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  to 
say  nothing  of  exporting  supplies  to  the  hateful  Teutons.  Be- 
sides, there  were  considerable  groups  of  persons  and  even  sizable 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     337 

forces  of  armed  men  in  Russia  who  opposed  both  the  Teutons 
and  the  Bolsheviki ;  this  opposition  would  have  to  be  overcome 
before  Germany  could  expect  to  reap  the  full  fruits  of  the  peace 
of  Brest-Litovsk. 

In  May,  1918,  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Russian  So- 
cialist Revolutionary  party  formally  denounced  the  Bolshevist 
regime  and  called  for  a  national  uprising  against  the  Germans ; 
and  in  June  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Constitutional  Dem- 
ocratic Party  did  likewise.  That  popular  feeling  throughout 
Russia  was  inflamed  against  the  Teutons  was  evidenced  by  the 
assassination  of  Count  von  Mirbach,  the  German  ambassador  at 
Moscow,  on  July  6,  and  of  Field  Marshal  von  Eichhorn,  the 
German  commandant  in  Ukrainia,  on  July  30.  About  the  same 
time,  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don  took  the  field  against  the  Soviet 
Government,  as  did  also  the  forces  of  the  *' Provisional  Govern- 
ment of  the  Caucasus";  and  in  Siberia  several  Conservative 
officers,  such  as  General  Alexeiev,  General  Semenov,  Admiral 
Kolchak,  and  Colonel  Orlov,  organized  loyalist  bands  and  inaugu- 
rated counter-revolutionary  movements.  As  early  as  February 
a  ^'Temporary  Government  of  Autonomous  Siberia"  had  been 
proclaimed  at  Tomsk,  but  subsequently  when  this  town  was 
captured  by  Bolsheviki  and  Teutonic  ex-prisoners,  the  seat  of 
the  Temporary  Siberian  Government  was  transferred  to  Harbin, 
in  Manchuria,  and  then  to  Vladivostok.  To  add  to  the  com- 
plications, General  Horvath,  vice-president  of  the  Chinese 
Eastern  Railway,  in  July  set  up  an  independent  anti-Bolshevist 
government  in  eastern  Siberia. 

But  the  most  effective  check  to  Teutons  and  Bolsheviki  alike 
was  provided  by  a  free-lance  expeditionary  body  of  Czecho- 
slovaks. At  the  time  of  the  Bolshevist  coup  d'etat,  in  November, 
191 7,  there  were  in  Ukrainia  and  southern  Russia  some  100,000 
Czech  and  Slovak  soldiers  who  originally  had  been  in  the  service 
of  Austria-Hungary,  but  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Russians  in 
the  hope  of  fighting  for  their  national  independence  on  the  side 
of  the  Allies.  Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of  Brest- 
Litovsk,  an  agreement  was  reached  with  the  Soviet  military 
authorities  whereby  these  Czechoslovak  troops  would  be  allowed 
to  proceed  unmolested  across  European  Russia  and  Siberia  to 
Vladivostok,  whence  they  would  sail  to  join  the  Allies  in  France 
or  Italy.  At  first  the  Czechoslovaks  preserved  a  strict  neutrality 
in  the  internal  politics  of  Russia,  and  some  of  them  actually 
made  the  journey  over  the  Trans-Siberian  railway  to  Vladi- 
vostok.    But  before  their  transportation  had  progressed  far, 


338         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

friction  developed  between  them  and  the  Bolsheviki  and  turned 
to  open  hostility ;  and  Trotsky,  yielding  to  German  representa- 
tions, sought  to  disarm  them  and  to  prevent  them  from  aiding 
the  AlUes. 

Armed  conflict  began  on  May  26,  191 8.  The  Czechoslovaks 
opened  operations  against  forces  of  Bolsheviki  and  Teutonic  ex- 
prisoners  simultaneously  in  the  region  of  the  Volga  and  in 
Siberia.  In  Siberia,  they  defeated  and  ousted  the  pro-Germans 
from  Irkutsk  and  Vladivostok,  occupied  several  towns  on  the 
Amur  river,  and  by  the  middle  of  July  were  in  possession  of 
1300  miles  of  the  Trans-Siberian  railway  west  of  Tomsk.  In  the 
meantime,  in  June,  they  had  captured  Samara,  Simbirsk,  and 
Kasan  on  the  Volga,  had  advanced  to  Ufa  in  the  Ural  Moun- 
tains, and  had  gained  control  of  the  chief  grain  routes  and  de- 
prived European  Russia  of  the  Siberian  food  supply.^  The 
Czechoslovaks  thus  did  heroic  work  in  preventing  the  consum- 
mation of  Teutonic  designs  on  Russia  and  in  arousing  national 
opposition  to  the  Bolshevist  regime,  but  they  could  not  hope 
with  their  slender  forces  to  retain  their  hold  on  such  a  vast  terri- 
tory unless  they  received  active  assistance  from  the  Allies. 

For  several  months  the  Allies  had  been  discussing  the  advisa- 
bility and  practicability  of  armed  intervention  in  Russia,  with  a 
view  to  reconstructing  the  Eastern  Front  and  thereby  lessening 
the  force  of  Teutonic  attacks  in  the  West.  But  from  a  military 
standpoint  the  task  was  at  any  time  difficult  enough,  and  at  the 
very  moment  when  every  available  AUied  soldier  was  needed  to 
stay  supreme  German  offensives  on  the  Western  Front  it  was 
peculiarly  hazardous.  Besides,  from  the  political  standpoint 
intervention  in  Russia  was  beset  with  difficulties,  for  the  Allies 
were  not  at  war  with  Russia  and  there  were  influential  groups 
in  Great  Britain,  and  especially  in  the  United  States,  who  would 
bitterly  resent  any  attempt  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  affairs  of 
a  presumably  friendly  Power. 

Nevertheless  the  spectacular  exploits  of  the  Czechoslovaks  and 
the  increasingly  obvious  interdependence  of  the  Germans  and  the 

1  The  death  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  II  was  a  curious  and  sorry  incident  of  the 
fighting  between  the  Russian  Bolsheviki  and  the  Czechoslovaks.  The  ex-tsar, 
who  had  been  taken  in  August,  191 7,  from  his  palace  of  Tsarskoe-Selo  to  Tobolsk, 
in  Siberia,  and  thence  transferred  in  May,  1918,  to  Ekaterinburg,  was  killed  at  the 
latter  town  on  July  16,  191 8.  The  official  statement  issued  on  the  subject  by  the 
Soviet  Government  said  :  "Ekaterinburg  was  seriously  threatened  by  the  approach 
of  Czechoslovak  bands,  and  a  counter-revolutionary  conspiracy  was  discovered 
which  had  as  its  object  the  wresting  of  the  ex-tsar  from  the  hands  of  the  Soviet ; 
consequently  the  president  of  the  Ural  Regional  Soviet  decided  to  shoot  the  ex- 
tsar,  and  the  decision  was  carried  out  on  July  16." 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS 


339 


Bolsheviki  finally  caused  the  Allied  Governments  to  reach  a 
tentative  accord  on  the  question  of  intervention.  It  was  decided 
to  dispatch  two  expeditionary  forces  to  Russia :  the  one  would 
be  landed  on  the  Murman  coast  and  at  Archangel  in  order  to 
defend  the  Murman  railway  ^  from  Finnish- German  attacks, 
prevent  the  estabHshment  of  submarine  bases  on  the  Arctic,  and 
keep  the  large  stores  of  munitions  and  supplies  which  had  been 
purchased  by  the  old  Russian  regime  but  never  paid  for,  from 
falling  into  enemy  hands ;  the  other  would  be  sent  to  Vladivostok 
in  order  to  police  the  Trans-Siberian  railway  and  support  the 
Czechoslovaks.  The  former  would  comprise  British  troops, 
with  detachments  of  French  and  Americans ;  the  latter  would 


consist  of  Japanese  troops,  with  smaller  contingents  of  Amer- 
icans, French,  British,  Chinese,  and  Italians.  The  United 
States  Government,  in  embarking  upon  the  enterprise,  declared 
it  did  so  ''not  for  interference  in  internal  affairs  of  Russia  and  not 
to  distract  from  the  Western  Front,"  but  ''to  protect  the  Czecho- 
slovaks against  the  armed  Austrian  and  German  prisoners  who 
are  attacking  them  and  to  steady  any  efforts  at  self-government 
or  self-defense  in  which  the  Russians  themselves  may  be  willing 
to  accept  assistance.  Whether  from  Vladivostok  or  from  Mur- 
mansk and  Archangel,  the  only  present  object  for  which  Amer- 
ican troops  will  be  employed  will  be  to  guard  military  stores 
which  may  subsequently  be  needed  by  Russian  forces." 

1  The  Murman  railway  had  been  built  in  191 6  from  the  ice-free  port  of  Mur- 
mansk on  the  Arctic  to  Petrograd,  in  order  to  provide  means  of  importing  war 
supplies  into  Russia  from  Great  Britain,  France,  and  the  United  States. 


340        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  naval  landing  had  been  effected  by  the  British  in  March, 
1 918,  at  Murmansk,  the  single  ice-free  port  on  the  Arctic  and 
the  terminus  of  the  recently  constructed  railway  to  Petrograd. 
Hither  in  June  arrived  the  small  AlHed  expedition,  under  the 
British  General  Poole,  which  proceeded  to  occupy  the  railway 
as  far  as  Kem  on  the  White  Sea  and  to  declare  the  Murman 
coast  to  be  '^Russian  territory  under  AlHed  protection."  On 
August  2  General  Poole  took  Archangel,  and  five  days  later  he 
organized,  from  among  anti-Bolshevist  Russian  refugees,  a 
regional  '' provisional  government,"  headed  by  Nicholas  Tchai- 
kovsky. These  activities  of  the  Allies  in  northern  Russia  served 
alike  to  embitter  the  Bolsheviki  and  defeat  German  schemes. 
Finland's  enthusiasm  for  conquest  of  the  Arctic  littoral  grad- 
ually waned  and  Germany's  increasing  preoccupation  elsewhere 
made  her  aid  negligible.  By  the  second  half  of  September  Gen- 
eral Poole  had  advanced  from  Archangel  fifty  miles  southward 
along  the  Dvina  river,  but  farther  he  could  not  get.  His 
forces  were  too  few  and  his  lines  of  communication  too  preca- 
rious. Merely  to  feed  the  starving  population  in  the  Hberated 
region  overtaxed  his  resources. 

In  the  Far  East  the  Allied  Expeditionary  Force,  under  the 
Japanese  General  Otani,  landed  at  Vladivostok  in  August,  1918, 
and  within  a  month  cleared  the  regions  to  the  north,  along  the 
Ussuri  and  Amur  rivers,  and  Hkewise  the  Trans-Siberian  rail- 
way as  far  as  Lake  Baikal  where  a  juncture  was  effected  with  the 
Czechoslovaks  operating  to  the  westward.  Communication  was 
thus  opened  between  Vladivostok  and  the  Volga,  and  the  enemy 
in  Siberia  virtually  collapsed.  Yet  the  comparative  smallness 
of  the  AlHed  forces,  their  lack  of  unity,  and  their  endless  civil 
difficulties  about  railway  control  and  the  recognition  of  *' pro- 
visional" Russian  Governments,  which  sprang  up  in  their  wake 
Hke  mushrooms,  prevented  them  from  utiHzing  their  successes 
in  Siberia  for  a  decisive  drive  against  the  Bolsheviki  in  European 
Russia.  In  particular,  there  was  dislike  of  the  Japanese,  who 
constituted  a  large  majority  of  the  whole  expeditionary  force  and 
who  not  only  treated  all  Manchuria  and  eastern  Siberia  as  their 
pecuHar  ^'sphere  of  influence"  but  also  blocked  for  several 
months  the  project  of  the  other  Allies  to  intrust  the  repair  and 
operation  of  the  Trans-Siberian  railway  to  a  staff  of  experienced 
American  engineers  headed  by  John  R.  Stevens.  It  was  not 
until  the  signing  of  the  armistice  on  the  Western  Front,  in 
November,  1918,  that  Japan,  responding  to  American  repre- 
sentations, consented  to  reduce  her  army  in  Siberia  from  73,000 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    341 

to  25,000  and  to  turn  over  the  whole  Trans-Siberian  railway  to 
the  American  engineers. 

Ever  since  Allied  intervention  at  Archangel  and  at  Vladi- 
vostok, in  August,  what  amounted  to  a  state  of  war  had  existed 
between  the  Entente  Powers  and  the  Bolshevist  Government 
of  Russia.  That  Moscow  and  Berlin  were  coming  nearer  to 
conciliation  and  united  action  was  evidenced  by  the  signing  on 
August  27  of  three  special  agreements  supplementary  to  the 
treaty  of  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  By  the  terms  of  these  agreements, 
Germany  conceded  to  the  Soviet  Government  full  Hberty  to 
nationalize  Russian  industry ;  the  Baltic  states  of  Esthonia  and 
Livonia  were  declared  independent  of  Russia,  though  Russia  was 
given  free  harbor  zones  in  the  Baltic  ports  of  Reval,  Riga,  and 
Windau ;  Baku  (in  the  Caucasus)  with  its  rich  naphtha  deposits, 
was  left  to  Russia  with  the  understanding  that  a  portion  of  the 
naphtha  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  Germany;  the  Bolsheviki 
promised  to  employ  all  the  means  at  their  disposal  to  expel  the 
Entente  forces  from  northern  Russia,  while  Germany  guaranteed 
Russia  against  attacks  by  or  through  Finland ;  and  Russia  agreed 
to  pay  Germany  an  indemnity  of  one  and  one-half  billion  dollars, 
a  small  part  of  which  would  be  assumed  by  Finland  and  Ukrainia. 

As  the  Bolshevist  Government  leaned  more  and  more  toward 
Germany,  the  AlHes  redoubled  their  efforts  to  coordinate  and 
unify  the  anti-Bolshevist  factions  and  '' governments"  in  Russia. 
In  September  anti-Bolshevist  members  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly  which  had  been  elected  in  the  autumn  of  191 7,  held  a 
National  Convention  at  Ufa  and  set  up  a  new  * 'All-Russian 
Government,"  with  Nicholas  Avksentiev  as  president  and  Peter 
Vologodsky  as  premier.  With  this  government  were  gradually 
consolidated  the  Temporary  Siberian  Government,  the  Pro- 
visional Government  of  Northern  Russia,  and  the  regional  ad- 
ministrations of  the  Urals  and  the  Don,  so  that  early  in  Novem- 
ber its  authority  extended  over  the  greater  part  of  Siberia  and 
over  portions  of  the  provinces  of  Samara,  Orenburg,  Ufa,  Ural, 
and  Archangel,  and  its  seat  seemed  securely  estabHshed  at  Omsk. 
On  November  18,  however,  a  counter-revolutionary  coup  d'etat 
was  executed  at  Omsk  by  Admiral  Kolchak,  the  minister  of  war 
and  marine  in  the  All-Russian  Government;  President  Avk- 
sentiev was  ''taken  to  an  unknown  place,"  several  influential 
radical  leaders,  such  as  Victor  Tchernov,  minister  under  Keren- 
sky,  were  imprisoned,  and  Admiral  Kolchak  assumed  a  dicta- 
torship. Obviously  the  same  factional  wrangUngs  and  dissen- 
sions which  had  ruined  Kerensky  in  the  autumn  of  191 7  were 


342         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

disgracing  and  paralyzing  the  anti-Bolshevists  in  Russia  in  the 
autumn  of  1918. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  manifold  difficulties,  Allied  inter- 
vention in  Russia,  combined  with  the  chaos  in  Bolshevist  Russia 
and  with  the  nationahstic  strivings  of  lesser  nationalities  within 
the  former  empire  of  the  tsars,  effectually  prevented  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary  from  reaping  the  full  fruits  of  the  peace 
of  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  Russia  as  a  whole  did  not  become  a  Teutonic 
satrapy  or  supply-station.  And  by  the  time  that  German  arms 
were  defeated  on  the  Western  Front  German  prestige  had  been 
quite  lost  in  the  East.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  continued  chaos 
in  Russia  to  which  probably  the  Czechoslovaks  and  the  Allies 
contributed,  it  might  have  been  possible  for  Germany  to  have 
exploited  the  East  politically  and  economically  and  thereby  to 
have  strengthened  her  resistance  in  the  West  and  postponed  the 
collapse  of  Mittel-Europa.  As  it  was.  Allied  intervention  in 
Russia  hastened  the  inevitable. 

Nor  should  the  role  of  the  Bolsheviki  in  the  final  drama  of 
Germany's  downfall  be  passed  over  in  silence.  Whatever 
criminal  deeds  these  fanatics  were  guilty  of  —  and  their 
guilt  was  certainly  considerable  —  they  at  any  rate  indirectly 
were  of  great  service  to  the  Allies  in  paving  the  way  for  the 
destruction  of  German  morale  and  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
Kaiser.  If  they  were  at  times  pro- German  in  deed,  they  were 
always  in  thought  and  word  anti-Kaiser  and  anti-Ludendorff. 
From  the  moment  of  their  assumption  of  power,  in  November, 
191 7,  they  had  never  wearied  of  spreading  propaganda  in  Ger- 
many, as  well  as  in  Russia,  against  Teutonic  militarism  and 
imperiaHsm.  To  this  end  they  availed  themselves  of  the  nego- 
tiations at  Brest-Litovsk  and  of  their  ''friendly"  contact  with  the 
Germans  throughout  the  summer  and  autumn  of  19 18.  Their 
embassy  in  BerHn  became  a  center  of  revolutionary  agitation  as 
sinister  to  the  Imperial  German  Government  as  it  was  timely  to 
the  AlHes.  The  Teutonic  crash  in  November,  1918,  was  due 
primarily,  of  course,  to  German  military  disaster  in  the  West, 
but  secondarily  (and  a  little  ironically)  it  might  be  traced  to  the 
Bolshevist  Revolution  and  German  ''successes"  in  the  East. 

ALLIED    TRIUMPH    IN    THE    NEAR    EAST:    SURRENDER    OF 
BULGARIA  AND   TURKEY 

At  the  very  time,  in  the  spring  of  191 8,  when  Germany  was 
making  her  supreme  effort  on  the  Western  Front,  her  Near 


i 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAI.  EUROPE  REVOLTS     343 

Eastern  confederates  —  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  —  were  engaged 
in  diplomatic  controversies  that  were  undignified  and  annoying. 
The  greedy  and  grasping  King  Ferdinand  was  insisting  that  the 
whole  region  of  the  Dobrudja,  recently  surrendered  by  Rumania, 
should  be  added  to  Bulgaria.  The  Young  Turk  regime  at  Con- 
stantinople, on  the  other  hand,  was  stoutly  maintaining  that,  if 
Bulgaria  secured  Dobrudja,  Turkey  must  have  compensations 
not  only  in  the  Caucasus,  as  a  charge  upon  Russia,  but  also  in 
Thrace,  at  Bulgaria's  expense.  King  Ferdinand  would  not  agree 
to  another  rectification  of  the  Turco-Bulgar  frontier,  and  con- 
sequently the  governments  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  so 
as  not  to  offend  the  sensitive  Young  Turks,  decided  not  to  hand 
over  the  Dobrudja  to  Bulgaria  but  to  administer  it  themselves 
''pending  final  adjustment."  To  patriotic  Bulgars  this  was 
interpreted  as  a  threat  by  the  Central  Empires ;  and  the  rela- 
tions between  Sofia  and  Berhn  were  not  made  more  cordial  by 
the  aid  which  the  Teutons  rendered  the  Turks  in  the  Caucasus 
or  by  the  backing  which  the  Turks  gave  the  Teutons  in  southern 
Russia  and  in  the  Dobrudja.  The  Black  Sea  might  become  an 
interior  lake  of  Mittel-Europa,  but  the  Bulgars  feared  it  would 
become  a  lake  dominated  by  a  close  Turco-Teutonic  alliance. 
Bulgaria  had  entered  the  Great  War  three  years  ago,  not  in  order 
to  subject  herself  to  an  overlordship  of  sultan  and  kaiser,  but 
simply  to  establish  her  own  hegemony  in  the  Near  East. 

And  now  in  the  spring  of  1918  the  Bulgarian  army  faced  alone 
the  Allied  forces  in  Macedonia.  The  Austro- German  divisions 
which  had  buttressed  it  from  1915  to  1917  had  been  called  away 
to  participate  in  the  mighty  offensives  on  the  Western  Front. 
There  was  still,  indeed,  the  so-called  Eleventh  German  Army, 
but  its  staff  officers  alone  were  German;  the  troops  were  Bul- 
garian. In  Albania  a  few  Austrian  battalions  were  opposing 
the  Italians.  But  the  entire  Macedonian  Front  from  Lake 
Ochrida  to  the  iF^gean  was  held  by  the  Bulgars  with  sixteen 
divisions,  or  about  400,000  men.  The  prolonged  inaction  of  the 
Allies  at  Salonica,  who  had  made  only  partial  and  limited  attacks 
in  the  vicinity  of  Monastir,  the  bend  of  the  Tcherna,  and  Lake 
Doiran,  kept  the  Bulgars  under  the  illusion  that  the  war  would 
end  in  reciprocal  lassitude  and  that  they  would  be  able  to  retain 
their  sensational  conquests  of  191 5. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Bulgaria  was  rotting  from  within. 
The  common  people  had  had  enough  of  the  war ;  they  were  hungry, 
weary,  and  restless.  King  Ferdinand  was  growing  unpopular. 
German  influence  was  decreasing  in  proportion  as  the  divisions 


344         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

lent  for  the  victories  of  191 5  and  1916  decreased.  And  the  army 
itself,  worn  out  by  war,  by  insufficient  food,  and  by  long  inaction, 
would  probably  be  unable  to  resist  an  unexpected  and  sweeping 
attack.  Perhaps  the  new  government  of  Premier  Malinoff, 
which  in  June  replaced  the  pro- German  ministry  of  Radoslavoff 
at  Sofia,  was  quite  willing,  before  intrusting  itself  to  the  good- 
will of  the  Entente,  that  such  an  attack  should  come.  A  defeat 
would  justify  a  separate  and  much  desired  peace. 

AUied  confidence  waxed  as  that  of  the  Bulgarians  waned. 
The  composite  Army  of  the  East,  better  known  as  the  Expedi- 
tionary Force  at  Salonica,  grew  ever  more  formidable.  In  the 
beginning  it  had  been  formed  of  French  and  British  divisions 
from  Gallipoli,  and,  although  its  effectives  had  been  gradually 
increased  from  1915  to  1917  and  it  had  been  further  reenforced 
by  Italian  troops  and  by  Serbian  divisions  which  had  escaped  the 
frightful  retreat  of  the  winter  of  191 5-1 9 16,  it  had  not  become 
strong  enough  to  break  through  the  Bulgarian  front  and  join 
with  Rumania  when  that  nation  entered  into  the  conflict  in  the 
autumn  of  191 6. 

Later,  however,  in  the  winter  of  1916-1917,  Venizelos,  having 
broken  with  the  pro- German  government  of  King  Cons  tan  tine, 
added  three  divisions  of  Greek  soldiers  who  had  ralHed  to  his 
banner;  and,  after  the  deposition  of  Constantine,  in  June,  1917, 
the  Greek  army  increased  steadily  to  ten  divisions,  creating  odds 
that  would  permit  the  AlHes  to  undertake  a  great  offensive 
movement  in  Macedonia.  In  July,  191 8,  the  Army  of  the  East 
comprised  some  twenty-nine  divisions  —  eight  French,  four 
British,  six  Serbian,  ten  Greek,  and  one  ItaHan  —  or  about 
725,000  men. 

In  July  and  August,  191 8,  Marshal  Foch,  while  raining  blows 
on  the  badly  shaken  armies  of  Ludendorff  in  the  West,  did  not 
lose  sight  of  the  Near  East  and  of  the  effect  which  the  elimina- 
tion of  the  Bulgars  and  Turks  would  have  upon  the  decision  of 
the  war.  With  that  clairvoyance  and  measured  audacity  which 
characterized  his  method  of  forcing  victory,  he  planned  a  double 
operation  in  Macedonia  and  Syria,  synchronizing  precisely  with 
his  own  smashing  blows  in  France  and  Belgium,  and  intrusted 
its  execution  to  two  leaders  —  Allenby  and  Franchet  d'Esperey 
—  whose  aggressive  spirit  he  could  trust. 

General  Franchet  d'Esperey,  who  arrived  at  Salonica  in  July, 
first  obtained  from  his  predecessor,  General  Guillaumat,  precise 
information  regarding  the  situation  of  the  Bulgars,  and  then  set 
to  work  preparing  for  victory.     On  September  14,   1918,  the 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS     345 


Bulgarian  lines  were  heavily  bombarded,  and  on  the  two  suc- 
ceeding days  infantry  attacked,  —  British  and  Greek  troops  in  the 
vicinity  of  Lake  Doiran,  on  the  right  of  the  Macedonian  Front ; 
French  and  Serbian  forces,  in  the  center,  along  the  Vardar  and 
the  Tcherna ;  and  the  Italians,  on  the  extreme  left,  in  Albania. 
So  great  was  the  AlHed  success,  especially  in  the  center,  that 
within  a  week  the  Serbians  advanced  forty  miles  and  threatened 
to  isolate  the  Bulgarians  operating  north  of  Monastir.  On 
September  24,  French  cavalry  entered  Prilep  and  found  huge 
quantities  of  abandoned  stores.  The  next  day  witnessed  the 
capture  of  Babuna  Pass  and  Ishtip,  and  the  opening  of  the  way 
for  a  quick  advance  upon  Veles  and  Uskub.  Meanwhile,  the 
Greeks  and  British  had  overcome  peculiarly  stubborn  resistance 


Macedonian  Front  at  Time  of  Bulgaria's  Surrender 

near  Lake  Doiran,  and  on  September  27  they  seized  the  Bul- 
garian town  of  Strumnitza.  The  road  to  Sofia  was  opened  to  the 
triumphant  Allies. 

Then  suddenly  Bulgaria  sued  for  an  armistice  and  promptly 
agreed  to  an  unconditional  surrender.  The  armistice,  signed  at 
Salonica  on  September  30,  provided:  that  the  Bulgarian  army 
should  immediately  be  demobilized  and  its  arms  and  equipment 
placed  in  AUied  custody;  that  all  Greek  and  Serbian  territory 
still  occupied  by  Bulgaria  should  at  once  be  evacuated ;  that  all 
Bulgarian  means  of  transport,  including  railways  and  ships  on 
the  Danube,  should  be  put  at  the  Allies'  disposal ;  that  her  terri- 
tory should  be  available  for  their  operations ;  and  that  strategic 
points  in  Bulgaria  should  be  occupied  by  British,  French,  or 
Italian  troops.  The  bubble  of  Bulgarian  pretension  was  pricked, 
and  its  bursting  brought  consternation  to  the  Central  Empires 
and  to  Turkey. 

On  October  4,  tricky  King  Ferdinand,  despised  alike  by  the 
Teutons  and  the  AUies  and  threatened  by  his  own  people  whom 
he  had  misled  and  deceived,  abdicated  in  favor  of  his  son,  the 


346         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Crown  Prince  Boris,  and  withdrew  to  his  private  estates  in 
Hungary.  AlUed  forces  proceeded  in  triumph  to  the  Danube, 
meeting  with  no  resistance  except  from  broken  Austro- German 
fragments.  On  October  12  the  Serbians  entered  Nish,  their 
ancient  capital.  There  had  been  a  brilKant  naval  raid  on 
Durazzo  by  Italian  and  British  warships  on  October  2 ;  on 
October  7  the  Italians  occupied  El  Bassan,  and  a  week  later  they 
took  Durazzo.  On  October  19,  only  about  a  month  after  the 
launching  of  the  Macedonian  offensive,  the  Allies  reached  the 
shore  of  the  Danube.  Late  in  October  Montenegro  was  cleared 
of  Austrians  and  Bosnia  was  invaded;  and  early  in  November 
Belgrade  was  reoccupied. 

The  liberation  of  the  Balkan  states  south  of  the  Danube  had 
immediate  consequences  of  far-reaching  importance.  It  en- 
couraged the  Rumanians  to  disregard  the  peace  of  Bucharest 
which  their  government  had  concluded  in  March  with  the 
Central  Empires  and  to  reenter  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  AlUes. 
It  enabled  General  Franchet  d'Esperey  to  carry  the  contest  into 
Rumania  and  southern  Russia  not  only,  but  also  to  menace  the 
now  exposed  southern  border  of  Austria-Hungary.  In  this  way 
the  subject  nationaHties  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  were  put  in  a 
new  position  of  vantage  in  their  struggle  for  independence. 
From  the  signing  of  the  armistice  at  Salonica,  the  old  Habs- 
burg  Empire  was  doomed;  Austrian  aggression  against  Serbia 
was  transformed  by  the  act  of  Austria's  confederate,  as  by  a  sort 
of  poetic  justice,  into  Serbian  triumph  over  Austria. 

Bulgaria's  surrender  menaced  the  integrity  of  Austria-Hungary 
indirectly;  directly  it  threatened  the  speedy  downfall  and  dis- 
solution of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  For  the  Balkan  link  in  the 
Berlin-Bagdad  Railway  was  now  in  Allied  hands;  Turkey  was 
isolated  from  Mittel-Europa;  and  General  Franchet  d'Esperey 
was  in  a  position  to  make  a  direct  and  unhampered  attack  by 
land  upon  Constantinople. 

Already  the  Ottoman  Empire  was  in  extremis.  Ever  since  the 
loss  of  Bagdad  in  March,  191 7,  Turkish  morale  had  been  steadily 
declining.  Unfortunately  General  Allenby  was  unable  immedi- 
ately to  follow  up  his  capture  of  Jerusalem,  in  December,  191 7, 
with  a  decisive  campaign,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  his  expedi- 
tionary force  was  depleted  by  withdrawal  of  British  and  French 
troops  to  reenforce  the  Allied  lines  in  France  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  mightily  assailed  by  Ludendorff  in  the  spring  of  19 18. 
However,  the  Turks,  fully  engaged  with  the  Arabs  of  Hedjaz, 
were  powerless  to  take  advantage  of  the  temporary  weakness 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    347 


of  their  most  dangerous  enemy ;  and  Allenby  utilized  the  respite 
afforded  him  by  capturing  Jericho  and  the  Une  of  the  Jordan  and 
by  strengthening  otherwise  his  hold  upon  Palestine. 

With  the  turn  of  fortune  on  the  Western  Front  and  with  the 
arrival  of  reenforcements  from  India,  and  at  almost  the  same 
moment  as  General  Franchet  d'Esperey  drove  against  the  Bul- 
gars,  General  Allenby  resumed  the  offensive  against  the  Turks. 
On  September  19,  1918,  he  struck  on  a  sixteen-mile  front  between 
Rafat  and  the  seacoast,  and  cleared  the  ground  for  a  sensational 
cavalry  dash,  which  within  thirty-six  hours  reached  Beisan  and 


;#^' 


Progress  of  British  and  Arab  Offensive  in  Turkey,  October,  191 8 

Nazareth,  far  to  the  north,  and  broke  up  the  Turkish  armies 
between  the  Jordan  and  the  Mediterranean.  Haifa  and  Acre 
were  seized  on  September  23,  and  three  days  later  the  British 
arrived  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  occupied  Tiberias.  Turkish 
forces  east  of  the  Jordan  were  meanwhile  being  driven  by  the 
Arabs  in  a  southerly  direction  and  were  thus  hopelessly  separated 
from  their  comrades  west  of  the  Jordan  who  were  fleeing  north  in 
a  mad  rout. 

Allenby's  advance  was  now  a  rapid  pursuit,  without  any 
frontal  fighting  on  the  part  of  the  Turks.  The  British  general, 
accompanied  by  the  son  of  the  Sultan  of  Hedjaz,  entered  Damas- 
cus on  October  i ;  and  Rayak,  Beirut,  Tripoli,  and  Homs  fell 
in  quick  succession.  On  October  26  Aleppo  was  captured,  and 
the  German  General  Liman  von  Sanders,  with  the  Turkish  Gen- 
eral Staff  in  his  baggage  train,  fled  to  Alexandretta.  In  five 
weeks  the  Allies  in  Palestine  and  Syria  had  moved  their  front 
three  hundred  miles  to  the  northward ;   they  had  taken  8o,ocx) 


348        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

prisoners  and  350  guns;  they  had  destroyed  whole  Turkish 
armies ;  and  they  had  cut  the  much  prized  Bagdad  Railway. 

To  cap  the  climax  of  Turkish  disaster,  the  British  in  Meso- 
potamia now  moved  irresistibly  upon  Mosul,  while  the  Allies 
in  Macedonia  threatened  Adrianople  and  even  Constantinople 
itself.  The  *' Sick  Man  of  the  East"  was  in  his  last  throes.  The 
Sultan  Mohammed  V  had  died  on  July  3,  and  his  successor, 
Mohammed  VI,  now  accepted  (October  10)  the  resignations  of 
Enver  Pasha,  Talaat  Pasha,  and  the  other  Young  Turks  who  by 
espousing  the  Teutonic  cause  had  brought  their  country  to  ruin, 
and  consented  to  sue  for  peace.  On  October  14  the  Porte 
appealed  to  President  Wilson  to  use  his  influence  to  secure  an 
armistice.  Receiving  no  reply  from  the  United  States,  the 
Turkish  Government  released  General  Townshend,  who  had 
been  captured  at  Kut-el-Amara,  and  sent  him  to  the  head- 
quarters of  Admiral  Calthorpe,  commanding  the  British  naval 
forces  in  the  ^gean,  to  ask  that  negotiations  should  be  imme- 
diately opened  for  an  armistice.  Admiral  Calthorpe  outlined 
the  conditions  on  which  the  request  would  be  granted,  and 
during  the  last  week  of  October  Turkish  plenipotentiaries  arrived 
under  safe  conduct  at  Mudros  on  the  island  of  Lemnos. 

Here,  on  October  30,  was  signed  an  armistice  which  went  into 
effect  on  the  following  day.  Its  main  terms  were  the  opening  of 
the  Dardanelles,  Bosphorus,  and  Black  Sea,  the  prompt  repatri- 
ation of  Allied  prisoners,  the  demobilization  of  the  Turkish  army, 
the  severing  of  all  relations  with  the  Central  Powers,  and  the 
placing  of  Turkish  territory  at  the  disposal  of  the  Allies  for 
military  purposes. 

German  mastery  of  the  Near  East  had  lasted  only  three  years. 
Throughout  the  Near  East,  in  Syria,  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Persia, 
in  Armenia,  in  Asia  Minor,  in  all  the  Balkan  states,  and  in  Con- 
stantinople, the  Allies  were  now  masters.  The  solution  of  the 
Near  Eastern  problems  rested  henceforth  not  with  the  Central 
Empires  but  with  the  Entente  Powers.  For  the  unconditional 
surrender  of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  was  followed  straightway  by  the 
complete  collapse  of  that  keystone  of  Mittel-Europa,  that  Power 
which  in  19 14  had  precipitated  the  Great  War — Austria-Hungary. 

THE    COLLAPSE    OF   AUSTRIA-HUNGARY:    RESURGENCE    OF 
OPPRESSED   NATIONALITIES 

Long  before  the  surrender  of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey,  long  before 
the  German  defeat  on  the  Western  Front,  the  Dual  Monarchy 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    349 

faced  disaster.  Unlike  her  confederates,  Austria-Hungary  suf- 
fered less  from  foreign  prowess  than  from  internal  weakness. 
Ever  since  the  Russian  Revolution,  in  March,  191 7,  the  task  of 
dominating  a  majority  of  Slavs  by  a  minority  of  Magyars  and 
German-Austrians,  under  any  theory  of  democracy  or  national 
self-determination,  had  become  utterly  hopeless. 

At  first  each  of  the  subject  nationalities,  —  Czechoslovaks, 
Jugoslavs,  Poles,  Ruthenians  (Ukrainians),  and  Rumans,  — 
clamored  for  autonomy  within  the  Dual  Monarchy,  but  as  time 
went  on  they  all  demanded  complete  separation  from  German 
Austria  and  from  Hungary.  Each  of  the  subject  nationaHties 
developed  remarkable  soHdarity,  the  clergy  and  the  university 
professors  vying  as  a  rule  with  the  business-men,  the  peasants, 
and  the  artisans,  in  the  furtherance  of  national  interests.  Sep- 
aratist propaganda  was  carried  on  in  the  open  and  by  stealth. 
Loyalty  to  the  Habsburgs  was  undermined.  In  such  cities  as 
Prague,  Agram,  Laibach,  Cracow,  and  Lemberg  there  were 
increasingly  frequent  riots  and  demonstrations.  Mutinies  in  the 
Austro-Hungarian  army  were  everyday  occurrences ;  and  many 
Czechoslovak,  Jugoslav,  and  PoHsh  troops  deserted  to  the  AlHes 
and  served  the  AlHed  cause  in  Russia  or  on  the  Western  Front  or 
in  Italy.  ^'National  Councils"  of  the  several  subject  nation- 
alities were  organized  in  Paris,  or  London,  or  Rome,  or  Wash- 
ington; and  these  ''provisional  governments"  not  only  fanned 
the  flame  of  sedition  within  Austria-Hungary  but  strove  to  se- 
cure active  Allied  assistance  in  their  efforts  to  disintegrate  the 
Dual  Monarchy. 

In  191 7  "disloyal"  agitation  had  been  less  prevalent  among 
Poles  than  among  Czechoslovaks  and  Jugoslavs.  The  Poles 
of  Galicia  had  always  been  treated  rather  liberally  by  the  Habs- 
burgs, and  the  erection  of  a  kingdom  of  Poland  by  Austro-Ger- 
man  decree  of  November  5,  191 6,  had  temporarily  appeased  the 
Austrian  Poles  and  enabled  Premier  von  Seidler  to  control  a 
majority  of  votes  in  the  Austrian  Reichsrat.  But  in  the  winter 
of  1917-1918  Austria  lost  the  support  of  her  Poles,  for  she  was 
obHged  to  agree  to  Germany's  poHcy  respecting  Poland,  and 
Germany's  poHcy  was  to  strengthen  Ukrainia  at  Poland's  ex- 
pense. Thus  the  PoHsh  province  of  Cholm  was  incorporated 
into  the  new  Ukrainian  state,  despite  the  vehement  protests  of 
the  German-appointed  PoHsh  Regency  at  Warsaw  (February 
14,  1918)  and  the  bitter  imprecations  of  the  Austrian  Poles  in 
Galicia.  Thenceforth  the  Poles,  as  well  as  the  Jugoslavs  and 
the  Czechoslovaks,  were  openly  hostile  to  the  Dual  Monarchy. 


350         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

General  Joseph  Pilsudski,  a  great  national  hero  and  formerly 
quite  pro-Austrian,  directed  such  an  agitation  in  Poland  against 
the  Teutons  that  for  the  safety  of  Mittel-Europa  he  was  arrested 
and  deported  to  Germany.  Joseph  Haller,  a  colonel  in  the 
Austrian  army,  deserted  after  the  treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk,  with 
his  Polish  regiment,  and,  after  joining  the  Czechoslovaks  in 
Russia,  made  his  way  to  Paris,  where  he  assumed  supreme  com- 
mand of  a  Polish  army  fighting  for  the  Allies  in  France.  And 
when  the  Polish  deputies  in  the  Austrian  Reichsrat  united  with 
the  already  numerous  opposition  of  Czech  and  Jugoslav  depu- 
ties, parliamentary  government  in  Austria  became  impossible. 
The  only  session  of  the  Reichsrat  during  the  Great  War  was 
closed  abruptly  by  Emperor  Charles  and  Premier  von  Seidler  on 
May  4,  1918. 

The  majority  of  the  population  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  were 
at  last  becoming  articulate,  and,  what  was  far  more  significant, 
they  were  uniting  in  common  opposition  to  the  continuance  of 
the  Habsburg  Empire.'  This  was  the  burden  of  the  Pan-Slavic 
Congress  held  at  Prague  on  January  6,  1918,  of  a  second  Con- 
gress held  at  Agram  on  March  2,  and  of  a  third  held  at  Laibach 
in  July.  But  greater  freedom  of  speech  naturally  prevailed  out- 
side of  Austria-Hungary  than  within;  and  consequently  the 
clearest  statement  of  the  aims  of  the  subject  peoples  of  the  Dual 
Monarchy  was  made  at  the  famous  Congress  of  Oppressed  Aus- 
trian Nationalities  convened  at  Rome  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Italian  Government  on  April  10,  1918.  This  Congress,  which 
included  leading  representatives  of  the  Czechoslovaks,  Jugo- 
slavs, Rumans,  and  Poles,  unanimously  adopted  the  following 
resolutions :  *'  (i)  Every  people  proclaims  it  to  be  its  right  to 
determine  its  own  nationality  and  to  secure  national  unity  and 
complete  independence ;  (2)  Every  people  knows  that  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Monarchy  is  an  instrument  of  German  domination 
and  a  fundamental  obstacle  to  the  realization  of  its  free  develop- 
ment and  self-government;  (3)  The  Congress  recognizes  the 
necessity  of  fighting  against  the  common  oppressors." 

That  the  Congress  at  Rome  faithfully  reflected  the  sentiments 
of  the  subject  nationahties  in  Austria-Hungary  was  amply 
demonstrated  three  days  later  by  a  noteworthy  assembly  at 
Prague.  On  this  occasion  the  Reichsrat  deputies  of  the  Czech 
nation  and  those  of  the  Jugoslav  nation,  the  latter  speaking  in 
the  name  of  the  Croats,  Slovenes,  and  Serbs,  met  and  made  a 
joint  agreement,  through  an  oath  worthy  of  everlasting  remem- 
brance, to  suffer  and  struggle  relentlessly  to  free  their  peoples 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    351 

from  the  foreign  yoke  and  bring  down  into  the  dust  the  old 
imperialistic  Empire,  covered,  as  they  said,  with  the  maledic- 
tions of  mankind. 

To  the  appeals  of  the  oppressed  Austrian  nationalities  the 
Allies  did  not  turn  deaf  ears.  Already,  in  191 7,  France  had 
authorized  the  organization  of  PoHsh  and  Czechoslovak  armies 
on  the  Western  Front  and  had  recognized  them  as  belligerent 
units;  and  now,  on  April  21,  1918,  Italy  recognized  the  Czecho- 
slovak National  Council  as  a  de  facto  government  and  placed  a 
Czechoslovak  legion  beside  her  own  troops  on  the  Piave  Front. 
On  May  29  Secretary  Lansing,  in  behalf  of  the  United  States, 
declared  *'  that  the  nationaHstic  aspirations  of  the  Czechoslovaks 
and  the  Jugoslavs  for  freedom  have  the  earnest  sympathy 
of  this  Government";  and  a  week  later  the  sixth  session 
of  the  Supreme  War  Council,  meeting  at  Versailles  and 
attended  by  the  prime  ministers  of  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Italy,  adopted  resolutions  that  "the  creation  of  a 
united,  independent  Polish  state,  with  free  access  to  the 
sea,  constitutes  one  of  the  conditions  of  a  soHd  and  just 
peace  and  the  rule  of  right  in  Europe,"  and  that  "the  Allies 
have  noted  with  satisfaction  the  declaration  of  the  American 
Secretary  of  State,  to  which  they  adhere,  expressing  the  greatest 
sympathy  with  the  national  aspirations  of  the  Czechs  and  Jugo- 
slavs for  freedom."  Of  the  complete  independence  of  Czecho- 
slovakia, formal  recognition  was  accorded  by  France  on  June  30, 
by  Great  Britain  on  August  13,  by  the  United  States  on  Septem- 
ber 2,  and  by  Japan  on  September  9.  No  other  course  could 
honorably  be  taken  by  the  Allies  toward  a  country  whose  soldiers 
at  the  time  were  waging  war  against  the  Central  Empires  in 
France,  in  Italy,  and  most  thrillingly  in  Russia. 

Under  the  circumstances  the  Habsburg  officials  at  Vienna  and 
at  Budapest  bent  all  their  energies  to  the  task  of  preserving  some 
semblance  of  order  in  their  dominions  until  such  time  as  the 
Germans  should  have  won  the  war  and  come  to  their  assistance. 
They  proclaimed  martial  law  in  Bohemia  and  in  Croatia.  They 
imprisoned  "seditious"  persons  and  endeavored  to  suppress 
"revolutionary"  publications.  They  kept  a  fairly  large  army 
on  the  Italian  Front,  though  they  discovered  to  their  chagrin 
that  it  was  no  longer  fit  for  any  offensive  operations.  They 
sent  some  artillery  and  a  few  regiments  of  infantry  to  aid  Luden- 
dorff  in  his  supreme  effort  on  the  Western  Front.  Most  of  all, 
for  the  success  of  the  great  German  offensive  in  France  they 
prayed  ceaselessly  and  imploringly.     There  was  little  else  that 


352         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

they  could  do.  There  was  no  other  hope  for  them.  German 
defeat  would  mean  for  Germany  simply  defeat;  for  the  Dual 
Monarchy,  it  would  signify  dissolution. 

Despairingly  the  Magyars  and  the  German  Austrians  wit- 
nessed the  quick,  sharp  hammer-blows  with  which  Marshal  Foch 
during  August  and  September  was  driving  Ludendorff 's  mighty 
hosts  out  of  France  and  Belgium.  Still  more  despairingly  they 
beheld  the  surrender  of  Bulgaria  and  the  advance  of  General 
Franchet  d'Esperey's  armies,  in  October,  to  the  Danube  and  into 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  The  nadir  of  their  despair  was  reached 
when,  on  October  24,  General  Diaz,  the  commander-in-chief  of 
the  ItaHan  armies,  struck  suddenly  against  their  lines  along  the 
Piave  and  in  the  Alps.  Their  remaining  armed  forces  were  now 
so  honeycombed  with  disaffection  and  sedition  that  they  were 
incapable  of  making  even  a  defensive  stand. 

Italian  armies  on  October  24-25,  1918,  smote  the  Austrians 
in  the  Monte  Grappa  region,  between  the  Brenta  and  Piave 
rivers,  while  a  British  unit  attacked  along  the  lower  Piave  and  a 
French  unit  took  Monte  Seisemol  on  the  Asiago  plateau.  By 
October  30  the  Italians  had  captured  Monte  Grappa,  with  33,000 
prisoners,  and  were  driving  the  Austrians  back  along  the  whole 
front  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic. 

With  the  fall  of  Monte  Grappa  the  enemy  army  in  the  moun- 
tains was  definitely  cut  off  from  the  one  in  the  plains,  and  both 
began  to  flee  in  increasing  confusion.  By  November  i  the  one 
in  the  south  was  in  utter  rout,  and  the  ItaHans  were  already 
across  the  Livenza  river,  inflicting  terrific  losses  on  the  fugi- 
tives. The  whole  stretch  of  country,  in  the  mountains  and  on 
the  plains,  for  a  distance  of  seventy  miles,  was  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  Austrian  dead.  On  November  3  the  Italian  War 
Office  announced  that  both  Trent  and  Trieste  had  been  cap- 
tured and  that  ItaHan  cavalry  had  entered  Udine.  In  ten  days 
the  Austrians  lost  an  immense  quantity  of  material  of  all  kinds, 
nearly  all  their  stores  and  depots,  and  left  in  Italian  hands  some 
300,000  prisoners  and  not  fewer  than  5000  guns. 

Meanwhile,  Austria-Hungary  had  bowed  to  the  inevitable. 
On  October  29,  Count  JuHus  Andrassy,  who  had  recently  suc- 
ceeded Baron  Burian  as  foreign  minister  of  the  Dual  Monarchy, 
notified  President  Wilson  that  his  Government  was  ready  to 
acknowledge  ^'the  rights  of  the  peoples  of  Austria-Hungary, 
notably  those  of  the  Czechoslovaks  and  the  Jugoslavs,"  and  to 
make  a  separate  peace  without  awaiting  the  outcome  of  Ger- 
many's negotiations,  and  he  begged  the  United  States  to  urge 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    353 

upon  the  Allies  the  cessation  of  hostilities.  On  October  31  an 
official  Austrian  mission,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  visited  the  head- 
quarters of  General  Diaz  and  offered  unconditional  surrender. 
An  armistice  was  accordingly  drawn  up  and  signed  on  November 
3,  19 18;  and  on  the  following  day  hostiUties  against  Austria- 
Hungary  ceased.  The  principal  terms  of  the  armistice  were 
as  follows :  complete  demobilization  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
armies  and  the  withdrawal  of  all  troops  operating  with  the 
Germans,  half  of  the  artillery  and  equipment  being  dehvered  to 
the  Allies ;  evacuation  of  all  territories  invaded  by  Austro- 
Hungarian  troops  and  likewise  of  all  territory  in  dispute  between 
the  Austro-Hungarians  on  one  hand  and  the  Italians  and  Slavs 
on  the  other,  such  territory  being  occupied  by  the  Allies ;  AlKed 
occupation  of  strategical  points  in  Austria-Hungary  and  of  the 
transport  system  of  the  Dual  Monarchy;  withdrawal  of  all 
German  troops  from  the  Balkan  and  Italian  fronts  as  well  as 
from  Austria-Hungary;  immediate  repatriation  of  Allied  pris- 
oners ;  surrender  of  captured  Allied  merchantmen ;  and  delivery 
to  the  Allies  of  fifteen  Austro-Hungarian  submarines,  three 
battleships,  three  light  cruisers,  nine  destroyers,  twelve  torpedo 
boats,  and  six  monitors,  all  other  warships  being  disarmed ;  and 
Allied  occupation  of  Pola  and  control  of  the  Danube. 

The  irretrievable  disaster  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  armies  in 
Italy  led  swiftly,  even  before  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice,  to 
the  dissolution  of  the  Dual  Monarchy.  By  the  end  of  October 
the  Government  at  Vienna  had  resigned  and  the  empire  was 
already  disintegrating  into  independent  states.  Emperor  Charles 
acquiesced  in  the  inevitable  by  appointing  Professor  Lammasch, 
an  anti-war  Liberal,  as  head  of  a  liquidation  ministry  to  hand 
over  the  former  imperial  powers  to  the  provisional  governments 
of  the  several  emerging  nationalities. 

From  the  ruins  of  the  Habsburg  Empire,  Czechoslovakia 
emerged  at  once.  On  October  18  its  independence  had  been 
solemnly  declared  at  Paris ;  ten  days  later  the  Austrian  Governor 
fled  from  Prague ;  and  on  October  29  Dr.  Karel  Kramarcz,  the 
local  head  of  the  Czechoslovak  National  Council,  proclaimed  the 
deposition  of  Charles  as  king  of  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Silesia,  and 
Slovakia,  and  the  establishment  of  a  free  and  united  republic. 
At  the  end  of  October  two  delegations  of  Czechoslovak  leaders  — 
the  one  from  Prague  and  the  other  from  Paris  —  met  at  Geneva 
in  Switzerland  and  drafted  a  constitution  for  the  new  republic, 
modeled  in  part  after  that  of  the  United  States,  and  chose  Pro- 
fessor Thomas  G.  Masaryk,  the  ''grand  old  man"  of  Bohemia,  as 

2  A 


354         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

provisional  president.  A  Czechoslovak  National  Assembly, 
convened  in  Prague  in  November,  ratified  the  choice  of  Masaryk 
as  president  and  selected  Kramarcz  as  prime  minister. 

Jugoslavia  was  also  becoming  a  reality.  Over  the  Slovenes 
of  Austria  and  the  Croats  of  Croatia  and  the  Serbs  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina,  the  Jugoslav  National  Council  at  Agram  assumed 
control.  On  October  29  the  Croatian  Diet  unanimously  pro- 
claimed the  deposition  of  Emperor  Charles  and  the  separation  of 
the  "kingdom  of  Dalmatia,  Slovenia  and  Fiume"  from  Hungary. 
At  the  same  time  the  Diet  expressed  a  desire  for  union  with 
Serbia  and  Montenegro.  ''The  people  of  Croatia,  Slovenia,  and 
Serbia  wish  to  have  nothing  in  common  with  Austria  and  Hun- 
gary. They  aspire  to  a  union  of  all  the  Jugoslavs  within  the 
limits  extending  from  the  Isonzo  to  the  Vardar.  They  desire  to 
constitute  a  free  state,  sovereign  and  independent."  For  the  ful- 
fillment of  this  desire,  a  provisional  agreement  was  reached  at 
Geneva,  in  Switzerland,  on  November  7,  between  Nicholas 
Pashitch,  premier  of  Serbia,  Dr.  Anton  Koroshetz,  leader  of  the 
Jugoslav  party  in  the  Austrian  Reichsrat,  and  Dr.  Anton  Trum- 
bitch,  president  of  the  Jugoslav  National  Council  in  London. 
Although  there  were  cultural  and  religious  differences  between 
the  Croatians  and  Slovenes,  on  one  hand,  and  the  Serbs,  on  the 
other,  and  although  the  Slovenes  in  particular  would  have  pre- 
ferred a  republic  to  a  monarchy,  nevertheless  so  great  was  the 
desire  for  national  union  that,  in  accordance  with  the  arrange- 
ments effected  at  Geneva,  the  Jugoslav  Convention  at  Agram  on 
November  24  formally  proclaimed  the  establishment  of  *'the 
Unitary  Kingdom  of  Serbs,  Croats,  and  Slovenes."  ^  Of  the  new 
kingdom  —  really  a  Greater  Serbia  —  King  Peter  of  Serbia  be- 
came monarch,  with  Prince  Alexander  as  regent,  and  with  a 
coalition  ministry  including  Pashitch  as  premier,  Koroshetz  as 
vice-premier,  and  Trumbitch  as  minister  of  foreign  affairs. 
Against  the  union.  King  Nicholas  of  Montenegro  alone  held  out ; 
his  fate  was  sealed  by  the  Montenegrin  Parliament,  which  on 
December  i  deposed  him  and  voted  for  the  incorporation  of 
Montenegro  into  the  Kingdom  of  the  Serbs,  Croats,  and  Slovenes. 

Apace  the  disintegration  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  proceeded. 
Transylvania  fell  away  froni  Hungary  and  Bukowina  from  Aus- 
tria, and  both  were  prepared  by  nationahst  agitators  for  union 
with  Rumania.  The  Banat  of  Temesvar  drifted  away  from 
Hungary  and  became  the  object  of  rival  claims  of  Rumania  and 

^  This  action  was  confirmatory  of  the  Declaration  of  Corfu  of  July  20,  1917. 
See  above,  p.  265. 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    355 

Serbia.  And  Galicia,  the  scene  of  conflict  between  Poland  and 
Ukrainia,  was  a  unit  in  repudiating  Austrian  rule. 

Even  Hungary  would  no  longer  endure  any  form  of  union  with 
the  Teutons.  Demonstrations  at  Budapest  on  October  28  inau- 
gurated a  swift  and  comparatively  bloodless  revolution  which 
put  Count  Michael  Karolyi  and  his  Independence  Party  in 
power.  On  November  2  Karolyi  announced  to  the  Hungarian 
National  Council  that  the  Emperor-King  Charles  had  volun- 
tarily freed  the  Magyars  from  their  oath  of  fealty  and  left  them 
free  to  decide  their  future  form  of  government.  On  November 
16  Hungary  was  formally  declared  a  repubhc,  with  Karolyi  as 
governor,  and  assurances  were  given  of  radical  democratic 
reform.  It  was  the  end  of  the  Ausgleich  between  Austria  and 
Hungary.     The  Dual  Monarchy  was  no  more. 

In  the  meantime  Vienna  had  become  the  center  of  a  revolution 
which  aimed  to  weld  the  Teutonic  population  of  Austria  proper 
and  of  the  Tyrol  into  the  "German  State  of  Austria"  under  a 
national  and  democratic  government.  The  movement  began  on 
October  30  with  a  demonstration  of  students  and  workmen  in 
front  of  the  Parliament  building,  when  the  president  of  the 
German  National  Council  announced  a  new  administration. 
"But  without  the  Habsburgs  !"  shouted  the  crowd.  An  officer 
in  uniform  then  called  upon  his  fellow-officers  to  remove  their 
imperial  cockades,  which  was  done  "with  enthusiasm" ;  and  the 
imperial  standard,  flying  before  the  Parliament  building,  was 
hauled  down.  Even  German  Austria  was  done  with  the  Habs- 
burgs. 

Emperor  Charles  was  ruined  by  a  war  which  he  did  not  make 
and  by  circumstances  over  which  he  had  little  control.  Young, 
well-intentioned,  and  amiable,  his  respectable  personal  qualities 
were  no  proof  against  the  vast  elemental  forces  which  took  his 
realm  from  him  and  only  left  him  the  unenviable  fame  of  being 
the  last  of  the  Habsburg  Emperors.  On  November  11,  1918, 
Charles  issued  his  final  imperial  decree.  "Since  my  accession," 
he  said,  "I  have  incessantly  tried  to  rescue  my  peoples  from  this 
tremendous  war.  I  have  not  delayed  the  reestablishment  of 
constitutional  rights  or  the  opening  of  a  way  for  the  people  to 
substantial  national  betterment.  -Filled  with  an  unalterable 
love  for  my  people,  I  will  not,  with  my  person,  be  a  hindrance  to 
their  free  development.  I  acknowledge  the  decision  taken  by 
German  Austria  to  form  a  separate  state.  The  people  have  by 
their  deputies  taken  charge  of  the  government.  I  relinquish 
all  participation  in  the  administration  of  the  state.     Likewise  I 


356         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  released  the  members  of  the  Austrian  government  from 
their  offices.  May  the  German  Austrian  people  realize  harmony 
from  the  new  adjustment.  The  happiness  of  my  peoples  was  my 
aim  from  the  beginning.  My  warmest  wishes  are  that  an  in- 
terval of  peace  will  avail  to  heal  the  wounds  of  this  war."  On 
November  13  the  National  Assembly  at  Vienna  formally  pro- 
claimed German  Austria  a  republic.^ 

The  Great  War  began  in  July,  1914,  with  the  attack  of  the 
Dual  Monarchy  of  Austria-Hungary  upon  the  little  Slav  state 
of  Serbia.  By  the  autumn  of  1918,  however,  Serbia  was  free  and 
amply  avenged.  Within  the  former  confines  of  the  Dual  Mon- 
archy were  now  the  three  independent  republics  of  Czecho- 
slovakia, German  Austria,  and  Hungary,  while  large  portions  of 
its  erstwhile  territories  were  added  to  Poland,  to  Italy,  to  Ru- 
mania, and  to  Serbia.  The  Habsburg  Empire  was  destroyed; 
it  had  taken  the  sword,  and  by  the  sword  it  had  perished. 

Of  Mittel-Europa  all  that  remained  was  the  Empire  of  the 
HohenzoUerns,  and  the  way  was  now  opened  for  an  Allied 
advance  into  Germany  not  only  through  France  and  Belgium 
but  through  Austria  and  Czechoslovakia  and  Poland.  The 
Empire  was  tottering  and  the  HohenzoUerns  were  preparing  for 
flight.  Germany,  which  in  19 14  had  not  delayed  to  stand  "in 
shining  armor"  beside  her  ally,  could  not  delay  in  1918  to  follow 
Austria-Hungary  in  suing  for  peace. 

THE  END   OF  HOSTILITIES:   FLIGHT  OF  WILLIAM  II 

Synchronizing  with  the  surrender  of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  and 
the  collapse  of  Austria-Hungary  was  the  constant,  forced  retire- 
ment of  German  troops  from  France  and  Belgium.  Late  in 
October  serious  mutinies  broke  out  in  the  German  fleet,  soldiers 
at  the  front  refused  to  fight,  Ludendorff  resigned,  Liebknecht 
and  other  Independent  Socialists  were  inciting  revolution, 
Emperor  WilHam  was  promising  far-reaching  democratic  reforms, 
and  Chancellor  Prince  Maximilian  was  begging  President  Wilson 
to  grant  an  armistice. 

^  Austrian  general  elections  were  held  on  February  15,  1919,  with  four  million 
men  and  women  participating.  The  National  Constituent  Assembly,  thus  chosen, 
convened  on  March  4,  its  membership  comprising  70  Social  Democrats,  64  Christian 
Socialists  (Clericals),  and  91  adherents  of  minor  groups.  Karl  Seitz,  leader  of  the 
Social  Democrats,  was  elected  president ;  a  coalition  ministry  of  Social  Democrats 
and  Christian  Socialists  was  formed  under  Karl  Renner  as  chancellor ;  and  a  re- 
publican constitution  for  German  Austria  was  drafted  and  subsequently  adopted. 
Ex-Emperor  Charles  sought  refuge  in  Switzerland  in  March,  1919. 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    357 

Negotiations  between  the  United  States  and  Germany  which 
began  on  October  5  ended  on  November  5,  when  President  Wil- 
son informed  the  Germans  that  Marshal  Foch  had  been  author- 
ized to  conclude  an  armistice  with  accredited  German  agents  and 
that  the  Allies  were  ready  to  make  peace  according  to  the  terms 
laid  down  ''in  the  President's  address  to  Congress  of  January, 
19 18,  and  the  principles  of  settlement  enunciated  in  his  sub- 
sequent addresses,"  subject  to  reservations  on  "Point  Two" 
(the  freedom  of  the  seas)  and  to  an  explicit  understanding  that 
"compensation  will  be  made  by  Germany  for  all  damage  done  to 
the  civilian  population  of  the  Allies  and  their  property  by  the 
aggression  of  Germany  by  land,  by  sea,  and  from  the  air."  The 
next  day  the  German  Government  sent  a  mission  headed  by 
Mathias  Erzberger  to  receive  the  terms  of  armistice  from  Marshal 
Foch.  At  Rethondes,  six  miles  east  of  Compiegne,  the  dejected 
German  envoys  on  November  8  met  the  stern  generalissimo  of 
the  Allied  armies  and  heard  from  his  lips  the  hard  conditions  of 
the  victors,  conditions  which  without  amendment  they  must 
accept  or  reject  within  seventy-two  hours.  At  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning  of  November  11  the  terms  of  the  armistice  were 
finally  accepted  and  signed. 

In  accordance  with  the  armistice,  hostilities  were  to  cease 
everywhere  at  eleven  a.m.  on  November  11.  Within  fourteen 
days  Germany  was  to  evacuate  Belgium,  France,  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, and  Luxemburg ;  within  a  month  she  was  to  evacuate  all 
territory  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  Allied  troops  would 
promptly  occupy  these  areas  together  with  the  bridgeheads  at 
the  principal  crossings  of  the  Rhine  (Mainz,  Coblenz,  and 
Cologne)  to  a  depth  of  thirty  kilometers  on  the  right  bank.  The 
treaties  of  Brest-Litovsk  and  Bucharest  were  to  be  renounced 
and  German  troops  withdrawn  from  Russia,  Rumania,  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  Turkey.  German  submarines  and  warships  were 
to  be  surrendered,  and  likewise  five  thousand  locomotives,  five 
thousand  motor  lorries,  and  150,000  railway  cars  in  good  working 
order.  The  economic  blockade  against  Germany  would  remain 
in  force. 

The  terms  of  the  armistice,  originally  agreed  upon  for  thirty 
days,  were  subsequently  renewed  from  time  to  time  and  re- 
mained in  effect,  with  minor  changes,  until  the  signing  of  the 
definitive  treaty  of  peace  at  Versailles  on  June  28,  1919.  In  the 
meantime  the  Allies  secured  a  strangle-hold  upon  Germany. 
Within  ten  days  after  German  acceptance  of  the  armistice,  the 
Allied  armies  had  passed  beyond  Brussels,  had  penetrated  into 


358 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


Luxemburg,  and  had  reached  Saarbriicken  and  the  Alsatian  line 
of  the  Rhine  to  the  Swiss  border.  King  Albert  of  Belgium 
formally  entered  Ghent  on  November  13,  Antwerp  on  November 
19,  and  Brussels  on  November  22.  General  Petain,  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  French  armies,  who  was  made  a  Marshal  of  France 
on  November  19,  entered  Metz  the  same  day ;  and  on  November 
25  French  troops  under  Marshals  Foch  and  Petain  triumphantly 


E^   LAND 

\i^     WMS.EW6.C0.,N.Y. 


Territory  Occupied  by  the  Allies  under  the  Armistice  of  November  ii 


occupied  Strassburg.  Everywhere  the  advancing  armies  were 
welcomed  by  the  inhabitants.  The  demonstrations  by  the 
people  in  Belgium  and  in  Alsace-Lorraine  were  marked  by  undis- 
guised joy,  in  the  one  case  that  they  were  again  free  and  inde- 
pendent after  four  years'  indescribable  sufferings,  in  the  other 
case  that  they  were  returning  to  France  after  a  compulsory 
separation  of  forty-eight  years.     Even  in  Luxemburg,  which  was 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    359 

believed  to  have  strong  German  leanings,  the  American  troops 
were  cordially  received.  By  the  middle  of  December  the  French 
had  advanced  170  miles,  the  British,  150,  the  Americans,  160, 
and  the  Belgians,  160.  The  British  took  over  the  administra- 
tion of  the  zone  around  Cologne,  the  Americans  that  around 
Coblenz,  and  the  French  that  around  Mainz. 

The  first  surrender  of  German  naval  vessels  under  the  armis- 
tice was  the  delivery  of  twenty  submarines  to  Admiral  Tyrwhitt 
of  the  British  navy  off  Harwich  at  sunrise  on  November  20. 
The  following  day  nineteen  more  were  delivered.  The  most 
spectacular  event,  however,  was  the  surrender  of  the  German 
High  Seas  Fleet  to  Admiral  Beatty  and  the  Allied  armada  off  the 
Firth  of  Forth  on  the  morning  of  November  21,  the  greatest 
naval  capitulation  in  history.  The  ships  surrendered  were  nine 
dreadnoughts,  five  battle  cruisers,  seven  light  cruisers,  and  fifty 
destroyers,  representing  a  total  tonnage  of  410,000.  Under 
British  guardianship  this  mighty  flotilla  was  interned  at  Scapa 
Flow  in  the  Orkneys ;  the  vaunted  German  navy  was  at  last  in 
British  hands,  and  Germany  was  defenseless  not  only  in  Europe 
but  on  the  seas  and  in  the  dominions  beyond  the  seas. 

The  Teutonic  debacle  was  complete.  Sea  power  was  gone. 
Land  power  was  gone.  Belgium  was  arising  from  her  ruins. 
France  was  in  possession  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  Allied  armies  held 
the  Rhine.  To  the  East,  Polish  troops  were  advancing  toward 
Posen  and  Danzig,  while  the  Czechoslovaks  were  occupying 
Upper  Silesia.  Rumania  denounced  the  treaty  of  Bucharest  and 
reappeared  as  one  of  the  Allies.  Constantinople  was  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Allied  fleets,  and  communications  were  opened 
between  General  Franchet  d'Esperey,  on  the  Danube,  and  Gen- 
eral Denikin,  commanding  anti-Bolshevist  forces  in  southern 
Russia.  The  whole  dream  of  Teutonic  mastery  of  Russia  was 
dispelled.  Skoropadsky,  the  pro-German  dictator  of  Ukrainia, 
was  overthrown ;  the  pro- Ally  General  Mannerheim  became  the 
head  of  the  Finnish  Government;  and  the  states  of  Finland, 
Esthonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania,  and  Ukrainia  made  haste  to  pro- 
claim their  complete  independence  and  to  appeal  to  the  Allies 
for  assistance  against  the  Teutons  on  one  side  and  against  the 
Bolsheviki  on  the  other.  In  Poland  the  German-appointed 
regency  resigned  on  November  14,  191 8,  in  favor  of  General 
Joseph  Pilsudski,  who  had  recently  been  released  from  a  German 
prison;  in  January,  1919,  Pilsudski  reached  an  agreement  with 
the  Polish  National  Committee  at  Paris  whereby  Ignace  Pade- 
rewski,  the  celebrated  pianist,  became  premier  and  minister  of 
foreign  affairs  while  he  himself  was  made  president. 


360        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

To  the  neutral  countries  of  Europe  the  cessation  of  hostilities 
brought  an  intense  feeling  of  relief.  The  Scandinavian  countries, 
the  Netherlands,  Switzerland,  and  Spain  could  now  reduce  their 
armed  establishments  to  a  peace  footing  without  fear  of  having 
their  neutrality  violated ;  they  perceived  the  early  ending  of  the 
economic  distress  under  which  they  had  long  labored ;  and  they 
promptly  repressed  whatever  sympathies  they  may  have  had  for 
Germany.  For  a  time  they  were  threatened  in  greater  or  lesser 
degree  by  the  revolutionary  agitation  which  followed  in  the 
wake  of  Mittel-Europa's  collapse,  but  they  managed  to  weather 
the  storm,  and  Denmark  was  soon  demanding  the  retrocession 
of  northern  Schleswig  as  her  portion  of  the  spoils  of  vanquished 
Germany. 

Such  a  catastrophe  as  was  overtaking  the  Teutons  could  not 
leave  intact  either  the  territory  or  the  political  institutions  of 
Germany.  The  German  Empire  had  been  builded  in  the  four 
years  from  1866  to  1870  by  iron  and  blood ;  by  iron  and  blood  it 
was  destroyed  in  the  four  years  from  1914  to  19 18.  Its  subject 
nationalities  —  the  Poles  in  Posen  and  West  Prussia,  the  Czechs 
in  Silesia,  the  Danes  in  Schleswig,  and  the  French  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine  —  were  now  liberated  from  its  yoke ;  and  the  German 
people  themselves  were  free  within  their  restricted  territories  to 
resume  the  task  of  creating  national  unity  at  the  point  where  the 
democratically  minded  deputies  of  1848  had  laid  it  down  and 
resigned  themselves  to  the  acceptance  of  Bismarck's  substitute 
of  militarism,  autocracy,  and  imperialism. 

On  the  eve  of  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice,  when  Germany 
first  began  to  appreciate  the  extent  of  her  defeat  and  humiliation, 
there  were  loud  popular  outcries  against  the  Kaiser  and  insistent 
demands  for  his  abdication.  William  hurriedly  left  Berlin  and 
sought  refuge  at  General  Headquarters  at  Spa.  But  hither  the 
clamor  followed  him.  News  came  that  Liebknecht  and  the 
Minority  Socialists  were  inciting  openly  to  rebellion  and  that 
mutinies  were  occurring  in  the  navy.  The  south  German 
states  threatened  to  secede  unless  the  Emperor  should  abdicate. 
Philip  Scheidemann,  the  leader  of  the  Majority  Socialists,  tele- 
graphed that  he  could  no  longer  be  responsible  for  the  actions  of 
his  followers.  On  November  8  the  Socialists  at  Munich,  under 
Kurt  Eisner,  deposed  King  Louis,  transformed  Bavaria  from  a 
monarchy  into  a  republic,  and  served  notice  on  Emperor  William 
that  they  could  not  tolerate  royalist  institutions.  Frantically 
Chancellor  Prince  Maximilian  wired  the  Kaiser  that  abdication 
must  be  immediately  forthcoming.     To  all  these  civilian  en- 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    361 

treaties  William  II  might  have  turned  a  deaf  ear,  but  when  at 
last  Field  Marshal  von  Hindenburg  and  other  weighty  members 
of  the  General  Staff  bluntly  told  him  that  they  could  no  longer 
insure  his  personal  safety  because  the  German  army  itself  was 
seething  with  disloyalty  and  sedition,  he  hastily  packed  his  bags 
and  with  a  few  faithful  henchmen  fled  quite  ingloriously  on 
November  9,  1918,  across  the  frontier  into  Holland.  On  the 
following  day  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Count  Goddard  Ben- 
tinck's  chateau  at  Amerongen.  To  Holland,  also,  fled  subse- 
quently that  other  despised  HohenzoUern,  the  Crown  Prince 
Frederick  William.  It  was  a  curious  commentary  upon  the 
mutability  of  human  fortune  that  the  history  of  the  German 
Empire  was  almost  exclusively  the  history  of  two  reigns  — 
William  the  First  (1871-1888),  under  whom  the  Empire  had  been 
reared  in  might,  and  of  William  the  Last  (1888-1918),  under 
whom  the  Empire  had  fallen  with  a  fearful  crash. 

On  November  9,  191 8,  the  German  Imperial  Chancellor, 
Prince  Maximilian  of  Baden,  issued  the  following  decree:  "The 
Kaiser  and  King  has  decided  to  renounce  the  throne.  The 
Imperial  Chancellor  will  remain  in  ofhce  until  the  questions  con- 
nected with  the  abdication  of  the  Kaiser,  the  renouncing  by  the 
Crown  Prince  of  the  throne  of  the  German  Empire  and  of  Prussia, 
and  the  setting  up  of  a  regency,  have  been  settled.  For  the 
regency  he  intends  to  appoint  Deputy  Ebert  as  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor, and  he  proposes  that  a  bill  should  be  brought  in  for  the 
establishment  of  a  law  providing  for  the  immediate  promul- 
gation of  general  suffrage  and  for  a  constituent  German  National 
Assembly,  which  will  settle  finally  the  future  form  of  govern- 
ment of  the  German  Nation  and  of  those  peoples  which  might 
be  desirous  of  coming  within  the  empire." 

A  general  upheaval  throughout  Germany  quickly  followed 
the  publication  of  Prince  Maximilian's  decree.  Throughout  the 
Rhenish  and  Westphalian  industrial  regions  the  movement 
spread  like  wildfire.  Imperial  emblems  were  torn  down  and  red 
flags  hoisted.  With  Socialists  cooperated  Catholic  Centrists 
and  Protestant  Liberals.  Hamburg,  Bremen,  and  Leipzig  went 
over  to  the  revolution.  While  contested  in  some  places,  on  the 
whole  it  was  accomplished  with  an  astonishing  lack  of  disorder. 
In  Berlin  only  a  few  hours  on  Sunday,  November  10,  sufficed  for 
its  complete  triumph.  Here  a  general  strike  was  started  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  shortly  afterwards  thousands  of 
soldiers,  carrying  red  flags  and  accompanied  by  armed  motor 
cars,  began  to  pour  into  the  center  of  the  city.    With  them 


362         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

came  workingmen  from  outlying  factories,  and  a  little  later 
trains  arrived  bringing  3000  sailors  from  Kiel.  Presently  all 
these  arrivals  broke  up  into  detachments  and  occupied  the 
bridges,  public  buildings,  street  corners,  and  railway  stations. 
Almost  as  by  magic  red  flags  appeared  everywhere,  and  officers 
on  the  streets  and  barracks  stripped  off  their  cockades  and 
epaulettes  —  in  very  few  cases  was  compulsion  required  —  and 
threw  them  away.  Hundreds  of  Iron  Crosses  could  be  picked 
up  from  the  gutters.  The  announcement  from  the  front  of  the 
Reichstag  building  that  Friedrich  Ebert,  a  conspicuous  leader 
of  the  Social  Democratic  Party,  had  become  Chancellor  and  had 
chosen  a  popular  ministry,  was  greeted  with  thunderous  cheers. 
From  the  official  news  agency  a  message  of  democratic  triumph 
was  transmitted  to  the  whole  world.  "The  revolution  has 
gained  a  glorious  and  almost  bloodless  victory." 

In  those  November  days  of  191 8  German  crowns  fell  like  over- 
ripe fruit  in  late  autumn.  The  flight  of  the  king  of  Bavaria  on 
November  8  and  of  the  king  of  Prussia  on  November  9  was  fol- 
lowed immediately  by  the  abdication  or  deposition  of  the  kings 
of  Wiirttemberg  and  Saxony,  the  grand  dukes  of  Baden,  Olden- 
burg, Mecklenburg,  and  Saxe- Weimar,  the  dukes  of  Brunswick 
and  Anhalt,  and  all  the  lesser  princes.  By  the  end  of  November 
every  German  state  possessed  a  republican  form  of  government. 

It  was  not  until  Chancellor  Ebert  was  firmly  established  in 
power  and  Germany  seemed  thoroughly  committed  to  repub- 
licanism that  Emperor  William  II,  at  Amerongen,  on  November 
28,  1918,  signed  a  formal  abdication  of  the  crowns  of  Prussia  and 
the  German  Empire,  and  that  Crown  Prince  Frederick  William, 
at  Wieringen  in  Holland,  on  December  i,  definitely  renounced 
all  claims  to  the  succession.  On  November  30  the  Ebert  Govern- 
ment decreed  a  provisional  electoral  law,  by  which  a  National 
Assembly  should  be  elected  by  secret  ballot  of  all  Germans  over 
twenty  years  of  age,  men  and  women  alike,  and  this  Assembly 
would  determine  the  country's  future  political  institutions. 

In  the  meantime  Germany  was  tormented  by  economic  dis- 
tress and  torn  by  partisan  strife.  On  the  one  hand  a  consider- 
able number  of  Junkers,  pan-Germans,  and  confirmed  mil- 
itarists, blaming  the  radicals  for  the  disasters  which  had  over- 
taken the  nation  and  fearing  the  revolution  would  deprive  them 
of  their  rights  and  privileges,  conducted  an  agitation  in  behalf 
of  a  monarchical  restoration.  On  the  other  hand  the  *'Spar- 
tacus"  group  of  SociaKsts,  led  by  Karl  Liebknecht  and  Rosa 
Luxemburg,  were  unwilling  that  the  German  Revolution  should 


ALLIES  TRIUMPH  AND  CENTRAL  EUROPE  REVOLTS    363 

stop  short  with  the  establishment  of  a  democratic  republic;  in 
imitation  of  the  Russian  Bolsheviki  they  held  that  there  should 
be  no  National  Assembly  and  that  the  body  politic,  as  well  as  the 
Government,  should  consist  of  one  class,  the  proletariat,  while 
the  intellectual  class  should  be  hired  to  work  for  it,  and  the  cap- 
italists and  landlords  should  be  eliminated  altogether.  With  the 
*'Spartacans,"  the  Minority  Socialists,  led  by  Hugo  Haase, 
Eduard  Bernstein,  and  Karl  Kautsky,  were  inclined  to  coop- 
erate. The  Spartacans  were  aided,  moreover,  by  the  ambas- 
sador of  the  Russian  Soviet  Government  in  Berlin,  Karl  Radek, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  by  Kurt  Eisner,  the  Socialist  premier  of 
Bavaria;  they  championed  'direct  action"  and  fomented 
strikes  and  disorders.  For  a  while  it  was  feared  in  Allied  coun- 
tries that  Germany  —  and  all  Mittel-Europa  —  would  follow 
Russia  into  Bolshevism. 

The  Majority  Socialists,  however,  under  Ebert  and  Scheide- 
mann  steered  a  middle  course,  suppressing  the  reactionaries  on 
one  hand  and  discountenancing  the  activities  of  the  Sparta- 
cans on  the  other.  They  were  resolved  to  erect  a  democratic 
republic  by  orderly  processes,  and  in  their  resolution  they  were 
supported  by  the  bulk  of  trade-unionists  throughout  Germany 
as  well  as  by  the  Catholic  Center  Party,  recently  rechristened 
the  ''  Christian  People's  Party,"  and  by  the  "Democratic  Party, " 
which  represented  a  fusion  of  the  radicals  of  the  old  Progressive 
Party  and  the  left  wing  of  the  old  National  Liberal  Party. 

On  the  eve  of  the  elections  to  the  National  Assembly,  in 
January,  1919,  the  Spartacans  and  other  extremists,  abetted  by 
the  chief  of  police  at  Berlin,  made  a  desperate  effort  to  seize  the 
Government  and  introduce  a  reign  of  terror.  The  insurrection 
was  sternly  suppressed  by  Ebert's  Government :  several  hundred 
rioters  were  slain ;  Karl  Liebknecht  and  Rosa  Luxemburg  were 
killed  by  loyalist  mobs  on  January  15 ;  and  on  January  19  the 
elections  to  the  National  Assembly  passed  off  without  untoward 
incidents.^  (    ' 

At  Weimar,  on  February  6,  1919,  the  German  National 
Assembly  was  opened.  It  included  164  Majority  Socialists,  91 
Centrists,  and  77  Democrats,  —  a  total  Government  hloc  of 
332,  —  while  the  Opposition  was  confined  to  34  Nationalists 
(former    Conservatives    and    reactionaries)    and    24    Minority 

^  Subsequently  there  were  spasmodic  outbreaks  of  disorder  in  Germany.  The 
assassination  of  Kurt  Eisner  by  reactionaries  on  February  21  precipitated  fairly 
serious  civil  war  in  Bavaria ;  and  in  March  there  were  menacing  situations  else- 
where in  the  country.  Ebert's  Government  managed,  however,  to  retain  the 
upper  hand  and  to  restore  order. 


364         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Socialists  (more  or  less  in  sympathy  with  soviet  principles). 
Some  seven  ''Independents"  brought  up  the  total  membership 
of  this  historic  body  to  397.  Among  the  members  were  twenty- 
eight  women  —  veritably  a  remarkable  sign  of  the  new  demo- 
cratic era. 

On  February  11,  1919,  the  National  Assembly  adopted  a 
provisional  constitution  for  republican  Germany  and  elected 
Friedrich  Ebert  as  Provisional  State  President.  At  the  same 
time  Philip  Scheidemann  became  chancellor,  with  a  coalition 
ministry  comprising  seven  Majority  Socialists,  three  Centrists, 
three  Democrats,  and  one  Independent,  and  including  such  well- 
known  men  as  Mathias  Erzberger,  Gustav  Noske,  Eduard 
David,  and  Count  von  Brockdorff-Rantzau. 

The  flight  of  Emperor  William  II  and  the  ensuing  establish- 
ment of  a  democratic  republic  in  Germany  aroused  Teutonic 
hopes  that  the  Allies  in  dictating  final  peace-terms  would  be 
specially  considerate  and  merciful.  But  such  hopes  were  soon 
blasted.  The  Allies  had  suffered  too  much  and  too  long  from 
HohenzoUern  militarism  and  imperialism  and  had  had  too  many 
proofs  of  popular  German  devotion  to  that  imperialism  and  mili- 
tarism, to  be  impressed  by  a  twelfth-hour  conversion  of  the 
German  people  to  pacifism  and  democracy.  As  recently  as 
March,  1918,  Germany  had  dictated  an  outrageous  peace  to 
Russia  and  to  Rumania,  and  if  her  armies  on  the  Western  Front 
had  been  as  successful  in  the  summer  of  1918  as  Ludendorff  had 
predicted,  she  would  have  shown  no  consideration  and  no  mercy 
to  France  or  Great  Britain  or  the  United  States.  And  in  this 
event  the  bulk  of  the  German  people  would  probably  have  been 
as  mute  and  as  acquiescent  as  they  had  been  in  the  negotiations 
at  Bucharest  and  Brest-Litovsk.  Knowing  these  things  the 
Allies  proceeded  in  much  the  same  manner  as  they  would  have 
done  if  Kaiser  Wilhelm  were  still  in  power :  the  German  people 
might  revolt  and  become  republican  if  they  liked  —  that  was 
little  or  no  business  of  the  Allies;  it  was  the  business  of  the 
Allies  to  refashion  the  map  of  Europe  and  dictate  the  peace- 
settlement  in  their  own  interests.  **To  the  victors  belonged 
the  spoils,"  and  the  Allies  were  the  victors. 


Longitude 


CHAPTER  XV 
A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS 
THE   SETTLEMENT 

No  series  of  events  in  the  whole  recorded  history  of  mankind 
had  proved  so  cataclysmic,  in  a  like  period  of  time,  as  the  Great 
War,  which  began  on  July  28,  19 14,  with  Austria's  attack  on 
Serbia  and  virtually  closed  on  November  11, 191 8,  with  the  armis- 
tice between  Germany  and  the  Allies.  In  politics,  in  economics, 
in  society,  Europe  had  undergone  a  revolution  and  the  entire 
world  was  in  ferment.  Yet  out  of  the  chaos  must  come  order, 
out  of  war  must  come  peace.  Just  as  the  Great  War  had  put 
an  end  to  an  epoch  of  international  anarchy  and  fear,  so  the  peace- 
settlement  must  serve  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  of  international 
cooperation  and  hope.  Upon  the  sanity  of  the  settlement  would 
depend  the  happiness  of  men  and  the  true  welfare  of  nations  in 
future  generations. 

The  nature  of  Allied  victory  possessed  for  the  peace-settlement 
an  advantage  and  a  disadvantage.  On  the  one  hand,  that  the 
victory  was  complete  and  overwhelming  made  it  possible  for 
the  Allies,  if  they  chose  to  do  so,  to  liquidate  Mittel-Europa  and 
settle  once  for  all  the  litigious  estates  of  the  Ottoman  Turks,  the 
Habsburgs,  and  the  Hohenzollerns.  That  the  victory  was 
achieved  by  a  large  number  of  nations,  held  together  in  a  loose  and 
informal  federation,  was  disadvantageous,  however,  for  each  vic- 
torious Power  had  its  own  particular  interests  to  subserve,  and 
peace  was  likely  to  partake  less  of  the  character  of  ideal  justice 
than  of  selfish  compromise. 

Among  the  masses  in  all  countries  were  large  numbers  who  en- 
tertained the  fondest  and  most  glorious  expectations  of  what  the 
Peace  Congress  would  do.  According  to  them,  it  should  lay 
broad  and  deep  the  foundations  of  a  new  world-order ;  it  should 
conduct  its  proceedings  in  the  light  of  open  day ;  it  should  recog- 
nize to  the  fullest  degree  the  right  of  every  people  to  decide  its  own 
fate ;  it  should  treat  great  and  small  nations  alike ;  truly  it  should 

36s 


366         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

*'make  the  world  safe  for  democracy"  ;  it  should  finally  end  not 
only  the  Great  War  but  all  wars. 

But  the  diplomatists  and  statesmen  of  the  several  Powers, 
while  professing  the  utmost  devotion  to  these  altruistic  principles, 
had  to  face  melancholy  facts  as  well  as  roseate  rainbows.  They 
had  to  recognize,  and  make  allowance  for,  certain  very  earthy, 
practical  circumstances.  In  the  first  place,  the  war  had  been 
so  long  and  so  exceedingly  bitter  and  the  Teutons  had  been  guilty 
of  such  heinous  offenses  against  public  and  private  morality  that 
naturally  in  Allied  countries  there  was  a  feverish  and  night- 
marish horror,  in  which  some  members  of  the  governments 
and  the  bulk  of  the  people  shared,  and  which  gave  rise  to  an 
almost  hypnotic  fear  of  what  Germany  might  do  in  the  future 
if  she  were  not  crushed  and  terribly  punished  at  the  present. 
Doubtless  in  some  quarters  this  psychosis  went  so  far  as  to  con- 
fuse justice  with  vengeance. 

Secondly,  the  war  had  entailed  such  grave  economic  losses 
and  hardships  that  many  Allied  citizens,  aware  of  the  downright 
inability  of  Germany  to  make  adequate  financial  reparation, 
clamored  all  the  more  for  some  tangible  compensation  from  her 
in  the  form  of  territories  and  rights. 

Thirdly,  the  AlHed  Governments,  though  originally  taking 
the  sword  in  order  to  rescue  civilization  from  destruction,  had 
come  in  the  course  of  the  protracted  conflict  to  wield  that 
sword  for  a  great  variety  of  specific  ends :  France,  to  regain 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  to  secure  guarantees  against  subsequent 
German  aggression;  Great  Britain,  to  destroy  the  menacing 
sea-power  of  Germany  and  to  strengthen  her  own  empire ; 
Italy,  to  obtain  Italia  irredenta  from  Austria-Hungary  and  to 
assure  a  commanding  position  for  herself  in  the  Adriatic  and 
eastern  Mediterranean;  Japan,  to  extend  her  sway  in  the  Far 
East  and  to  establish  a  sort  of  ''Monroe  Doctrine"  for  China; 
Serbia,  Rumania,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Poland,  to  secure  inde- 
pendence and  in  each  instance  to  annex  any  lands  in  which  its 
nationahty  was  represented;  Greece,  to  obtain  southern  Al- 
bania, and  Thrace  and  Smyrna  —  all  the  coasts  and  islands  of  the 
^gean.  Upon  these  specific  ends  the  peoples  of  the  several 
countries  had  set  their  minds,  and  their  representatives  at  Paris 
could  not  afford  to  disappoint  them.  The  United  States  was 
the  only  Great  Power  associated  with  the  Entente  which  had  no 
territorial  ambitions  and  whose  motives  in  this  respect  could  be 
described  as  absolutely  disinterested. 

Then  too,  the  temporary  league  of  free  nations,  which  had 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  367 

finally  destroyed  Mittel-Europa  and  crushed  the  German  Em- 
pire, had  been  builded  up  and  strengthened  by  means  of  promises 
held  out  to  prospective  members  at  various  times  when  the 
Entente  was  hard  pressed.  These  promises  were  usually  made 
in  the  form  of  ''secret  treaties,"  such  as  those  of  191 5  by  which 
Italy  had  been  brought  into  the  war,  or  those  of  191 6  which  had 
induced  Rumania  to  join  the  Allies.  In  191 7  a  whole  series  of 
secret  engagements  had  been  entered  into,  guaranteeing  definite 
territorial  or  economic  gains  to  Great  Britain,  Russia,  France, 
Italy,  and  Japan.  To  none  of  the  "secret  treaties"  was  the 
United  States  a  party ;  of  the  existence  of  some  of  them  she  was 
actually  kept  in  ignorance  until  after  the  cessation  of  hostilities ; 
yet  one  of  the  celebrated  ''fourteen  points"  of  President  Wilson, 
on  which  the  Allies  consented  to  negotiate  peace,  was  ''open 
covenants  openly  arrived  at."  Here  was  a  circumstance  most 
trying  even  to  experienced  and  calloused  diplomatists. 

Between  the  actual  situation  imposed  upon  Allied  statesmen 
by  circumstances  of  the  preceding  four  years  and  the  hopes  of 
enhghtened  pubhc  opinion  in  AHied  countries  there  was  ob- 
viously a  wide  chasm.  Between  the  aims  and  ambitions  of  the 
several  Allied  Powers  there  was  patent  divergence  and  potential 
cause  of  conflict.  To  prevent  the  chasm  from  becoming  un- 
bridgeable and  the  national  divergences  from  leading  to  armed 
strife  —  either  of  which  would  surely  redound  to  Germany's 
advantage  and  might  easily  enable  the  Teutons  to  escape  just 
punishment  for  their  transgressions  —  it  was  decided  soon  after 
the  cessation  of  hostihties  (November  11,  1918)  to  exclude  Ger- 
many from  the  Peace  Conference  until  the  Allies  themselves 
should  have  agreed  upon  the  provisions  of  the  final  treaty  of 
peace,  until  their  own  differences  should  have  been  amicably 
adjusted  and  the  demands  of  their  diplomatists  squared  as  far 
as  possible  with  the  dictates  of  popular  conscience.  It  was 
decided  also,  quite  appropriately,  that  the  Preliminary  Con- 
ference among  the  Allies  "should  be  held  in  Paris,  and  the  Defini- 
tive Peace  Congress  with  the  Germans  at  Versailles,  the  two 
historic  capitals  of  France,  —  France  which,  perhaps  of  all  the 
Allies,  had  contributed  most,  ahke  in  suffering  and  in  glorious 
deed,  to  the  cause  of  Allied  victory. 

January  18  was  the  date  in  187 1  when  the  Hohenzollern  king 
of  Prussia,  in  the  midst  of  a  successful  war  against  France,  and 
surrounded  by  his  triumphant  generals  and  statesmen,  had 
stood  in  the  Hall  of  Mirrors  at  Versailles  and  been  proclaimed 
German  Emperor.     Forty-eight  years  had  since  elapsed,  and 


368         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

now  at  the  close  of  an  overwhelmingly  victorious  war  against 
Germany,  Allied  statesmen  and  AlHed  generals  assembled  at 
Paris  to  undo  the  work  of  Bismarck  and  the  Hohenzollerns.  On 
January  i8,  1919,  the  Peace  Conference  held  its  first  session. 

It  was  a  brilliant  assemblage  of  the  foremost  men  of  those 
countries  which  had  banded  together  to  resist  Teutonic  ag- 
gression. There  was  Clemenceau,  the  grizzly  and  sagacious 
veteran  of  French  RepubHcan  politics,  the  *' Tiger  "  of  his  country 
and  of  the  Alliance ;  there  was  Marshal  Foch,  the  organizer  and 
winner  of  victory ;  there  was  President  Wilson,  who  had  played 
a  major  role  in  the  past  two  years  of  the  war  and  who,  in  coming 
to  Europe,  had  established  a  wholly  new  precedent  for  American 
executives ;  there  was  Lloyd  George,  the  *'  httle  Welsh  attorney," 
who  from  being  the  most  feared  and  hated  radical  social  reformer 
in  Great  Britain  had  become  the  most  conspicuous  patriot  in 
all  the  dominions  of  King  George  V;  Orlando,  the  Italian 
premier ;  Marquis  Saionji,  twice  prime  minister  of  Japan ; 
Venizelos,  the  greatest  statesman  of  modern  Greece ;  Kramarcz, 
premier  of  Czechoslovakia;  Bratiano,  premier  of  Rumania; 
Pashitch,  premier  of  Serbia;  Stephen  Pichon,  French  minister 
of  foreign  affairs ;  Jules  Cambon,  who  was  French  ambassador 
at  Berlin  when  war  broke  out  in  1914;  Arthur  J.  Balfour, 
British  foreign  secretary  and  once  upon  a  time  attendant  at 
the  Congress  of  Berlin;  General  Botha  and  General  Smuts, 
erstwhile  Boer  warriors  against  Great  Britain  but  now  stalwart 
defenders  of  the  British  Union  of  South  Africa ;  William  Hughes, 
premier  of  AustraHa ;  William  Massey,  premier  of  New  Zealand ; 
Sir  William  Lloyd,  premier  of  Newfoundland;  Sir  Robert 
Borden,  premier  of  Canada;  the  Maharajah  of  Bikaner  and 
Sir  S.  P.  Sinha,  representing  India ;  Prince  Feisal,  the  son  of  the 
Sherif  of  Mecca  who  had  become  the  sultan  of  the  new  Arab 
kingdom  of  Hedjaz;  Robert  Lansing,  American  Secretary  of 
State;  Colonel  House,  special  friend  and  confidential  adviser 
of  President  Wilson ;  Henry  White  and  General  Bliss,  represent- 
ing the  diplomatic  and  mihtary  traditions  of  the  United  States ; 
Baron  Sidney  Sonnino,  Italian  foreign  minister  continuously 
since  19 14  and  an  uncompromising  advocate  of  Italian  imperial- 
ism; Epitacio  Pessoa,  president-elect  of  Brazil  and  one  of  the 
foremost  jurists  of  Latin  America;  Paul  Hymans,  Belgian 
foreign  minister ;  Van  Der  Heuvel,  Belgian  envoy  to  the  Pope ; 
and  Emile  Vandervelde,  the  patriotic  Belgian  Socialist.  At- 
tending all  these  celebrities  were  a  host  of  more  obscure  but 
no  less  important  *' experts" — professors  and  publicists  and 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  369 

cartographers  and  financiers  and  secretaries  —  a  host  as  necessary 
to  the  Peace  Conference  as  privates  to  an  army.  And  waiting 
upon  them  were  numerous  ''missions"  and  '^ envoys"  from 
racial  or  religious  groups  throughout  the  world,  who  sought 
favors  or  aspired  to  freedom :  Russians,  Koreans,  negroes, 
Irishmen,  Abyssinians,  etc. 

The  formal  assembling  of  the  Peace  Conference  on  January  18 
had  been  preceded  by  almost  daily  conferences  of  the  Inter- 
allied Supreme  War  Council  and  by  several  informal  meetings 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  with  the  premiers  and 
foreign  ministers  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy,  assisted 
by  the  Japanese  ambassadors  in  Paris  and  London.  At  these 
meetings  and  conferences  the  procedure  and  general  scope  of 
the  Peace  Conference  had  been  planned. 

The  Preliminary  Peace  Conference,  as  organized,  included 
seventy  delegates  from  thirty- two  states,  distributed  as  follows : 
United  States,  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan,  five 
each;  Belgium,  Brazil,  and  Serbia,  three  apiece;  Canada, 
Australia,  South  Africa,  India,  China,  Greece,  Hedjaz,  Poland, 
Portugal,  Rumania,  Siam,  and  Czechoslovakia,  two  apiece; 
and  one  each  from  New  Zealand,  Bolivia,  Cuba,  Ecuador, 
Guatemala,  Haiti,  Honduras,  Liberia,  Nicaragua,  Panama, 
Peru,  and  Uruguay.  At  the  opening  session  of  the  Conference 
in  the  Peace  Hall  of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  just  across 
the  Seine  from  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  President  Poincare 
of  the  French  Republic  welcomed  the  delegates  with  felicitous 
phrase,  and  then  Premier  Clemenceau  of  France  was  chosen 
president,  while  honorary  vice-presidencies  were  bestowed  upon 
Secretary  Lansing  of  the  United  States,  Premier  Lloyd  George 
of  Great  Britain,  Premier  Orlando  of  Italy,  and  Marquis  Saionji 
of  Japan. 

Thenceforth,  until  the  presentation  of  the  draft  of  the  com- 
pleted treaty  to  the  Germans  on  May  7,  the  Conference  met 
on  rare  occasions,  and  even  its  sessions  were  largely  perfunctory 
and  ceremonial.  The  real  work  of  the  Conference  was  carried 
on  by  special  committees  of  diplomatists  and  ''experts"  se- 
lected as  needs  arose  for  the  consideration  of  such  matters  as 
''league  of  nations,"  "responsibility  for  the  war,"  "reparations," 
"labor  legislation,"  "international  regulation  of  waterways," 
"financial  questions,"  "economic  questions,"  "territorial  ques- 
tions," etc.  Most  of  the  work  was  conducted  in  privacy  and 
secrecy,  and  only  such  committee  reports  were  passed  on  to  the 
plenary  Conference  as  met  the  approval  of  the  spokesmen  of 


370        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  Great  Powers.  At  first  the  Great  Powers  maintained  a 
''Supreme  Council,"  consisting  of  the  two  ranking  delegates 
from  the  United  States,  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan, 
to  which  was  subordinated  all  the  machinery  of  the  Conference 
and  before  which  all  conflicting  claims  were  presented.  But 
the  Supreme  Council  of  Ten  proved  too  unwieldy,  and  it  gradually 
gave  way  to  an  informal  Council  of  Five,  including  Japan ;  then 
Japan  was  dropped  from  the  inner  circle,  and  Premiers  Clemen- 
ceau,  Lloyd  George,  Orlando,  and  President  Wilson,  known  as 
the  Council  of  Four,  carried  on  the  discussions  on  the  most  im- 
portant issues  among  themselves;  finally,  when  on  the  eve  of 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  the  Germans  Italy  became 
temporarily  alienated  by  the  proposed  settlement  of  Adriatic 
claims,  and  Orlando  withdrew,  the  chief  responsibility  for  the 
Conference  devolved  upon  the  ^'Big  Three"  — Wilson,  Clemen- 
ceau,  and  Lloyd  George. 

It  was  no  easy  task  to  reconcile  differences  of  opinion  and 
policy  among  the  thirty-two  delegations  and  to  preserve  a  united 
front  on  the  part  of  all  the  AlKed  and  Associated  Governments. 
President  Wilson,  who  had  set  his  heart  upon  fashioning  a  League 
of  Nations,  felt  himself  obHged  to  make  repeated  concessions  to 
his  associates  in  order  to  enhst  their  support  for  his  pet  project. 
For  example,  ''freedom  of  the  seas,"  of  which  he  talked  much 
before  he  went  to  Europe,  quite  disappeared  from  polite  con- 
versation —  it  was  a  concession  to  British  susceptibihties,  and  a 
concession  gratefully  received,  for  the  British  delegates  at  Paris, 
as  soon  as  they  were  assured  of  the  unquestioned  control  of  the 
seas  by  Great  Britain,  and  British  management,  through  a 
"mandatary"  system,  of  the  bulk  of  the  German  colonies,  be- 
came enthusiastic  champions  of  the  League  of  Nations  and  de- 
voted friends  of  President  Wilson.  To  France  President  Wilson 
found  it  convenient  to  yield  not  only  Alsace-Lorraine  and  various 
economic  privileges  in  Germany  but  special  financial  and  po- 
htical  rights,  for  a  term  of  fifteen  years,  in  the  strictly  Teutonic 
Saar  basin  and  the  extraordinary  guarantee  of  a  new  defensive 
alliance  between  France,  the  United  States,  and  Great  Britain  — 
an  alliance  which  in  spirit  if  not  in  letter  was  contrary  to  earlier 
declarations  against  group  alliances  within  the  League  of  Nations. 
Furthermore,  the  German  rights  and  privileges  in  Shantung, 
instead  of  being  surrendered  to  China,  were  transferred  to 
Japan,  and  the  secret  treaties  which  had  been  concluded  in  191 7 
between  Japan  and  the  Entente  were  recognized  and  upheld,  be- 
cause otherwise  Japan  threatened  to  withdraw  from  the  Con- 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  371 

ference  and  to  disrupt  the  League  of  Nations ;  in  this  way  the 
United  States  departed  radically  from  her  traditional  Far 
Eastern  poHcy  of  protecting  China  and  permitted  one  of  the 
weaker  Allies  to  be  despoiled  by  one  of  the  stronger.  In  the 
case  of  Italy,  which  had  the  audacity  to  demand  the  cession, 
at  the  expense  of  Serbia,  not  only  of  all  the  territory  pledged  her 
by  the  secret  treaties  but  the  Adriatic  port  of  Fiume  also,  Presi- 
dent Wilson  stood  his  ground  better,  but  the  Italian  delegates 
actually  withdrew  temporarily  from  the  Conference  and  subse- 
quently secured  a  compromise.^ 

In  addition  to  these  difficulties,  the  diplomatists  at  Paris  were 
confronted  with  perplexing  boundary  disputes  among  the  lesser 
Powers.  So  intermingled  were  different  nationalities  in  various 
parts  of  the  ruined  empires  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  Turkey,  that 
it  was  well-nigh  impossible  to  draw  frontiers  for  Poland,  Czecho- 
slovakia, Rumania,  Serbia,  Greece,  and  Armenia,  which  would 
satisfy  the  ambitions  of  their  own  peoples  and  which  at  the  same 
time  would  not  outrage  their  neighbors.  So  conflicting,  more- 
over, were  the  interests  of  Japan,  on  one  hand,  and  of  Australia 
and  New  Zealand,  on  the  other,  that  it  required  much  tact  to 
arrive  at  a  territorial  settlement  in  the  Pacific.  Over  all  these 
questions  the  negotiations  were  protracted,  and  it  was  almost  mi- 
raculous that  a  general  agreement  was  finally  reached.  Only  the 
weariness  of  the  European  peoples  and  the  dictatorial  attitude  of 
the  representatives  of  the  five  Great  Powers  prevented  some  of 
the  AUied  states  from  engaging  in  open  war  with  each  other,  and 
even  then  there  were  hostile  clashes  in  Central  Europe  between 
Poles  and  Czechoslovaks,  between  Poles  and  Ukrainians,  between 
Rumanians  and  Jugoslavs,  and  between  Jugoslavs  and  Italians. 

After  four  months  of  unremitting  labor  on  the  part  of  the 
Allied  diplomatists  the  draft  of  the  proposed  treaty  with  Ger- 
many, containing  about  80,000  words,  was  agreed  to  by  the 
Council  of  Five  and  accepted  by  the  PreUminary  Peace  Con- 
ference in  plenary  session  assembled  on  May  6 ;  ^   and  the  Pre- 

^  Against  the  excessive  imperialism  of  Orlando  and  Sonnino,  protests  had  been 
made  in  Italy,  and  at  the  close  of  191 8  the  Socialist  Leonida  Bissolati  and  the 
Clerical  Francesco  Nitti  had  resigned  their  posts  in  the  Orlando  cabinet  as  minis- 
ters respectively  of  pensions  and  finance.  As  an  outcome  of  the  controversy  with 
the  Jugoslavs  and  President  Wilson  over  Fiume,  a  new  ministry  was  formed  in  July, 
1 91 9,  with  Nitti  as  premier  and  Tommaso  Tittoni  as  foreign  secretary.  Nitti  was 
somewhat  more  conciliatory  than  his  predecessor,  but  not  even  he  could  be  deaf 
to  vociferous  demands  of  his  countrymen  for  extensive  territorial  annexations. 
For  the  settlement  subsequently  proposed,  in  January,  1920,  see  below,  p.  385. 

2  This  plenary  session  on  the  afternoon  of  May  6  was  secret ;  and  the  treaty 
draft  was  accepted  without  its  details  being  fully  and  generally  known.  The  reading 


372         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

liminary  Peace  Conference  was  then  transformed  into  the 
Definitive  Peace  Congress,  in  which  Germany  was  to  be  repre- 
sented. Already,  on  May  i,  the  German  plenipotentiaries, 
headed  by  Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau,  the  foreign  secretary  of 
the  republican  government  at  BerUn,  had  been  formally  received 
at  Versailles  and  had  presented  their  credentials  to  the  Allies. 
Now,  on  May  7,  1919,  which  by  a  curious  coincidence  was  the 
fourth  anniversary  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  Premier 
Clemenceau,  in  the  presence  of  the  plenipotentiaries  of  France, 
Great  Britain,  Italy,  Japan,  the  United  States,  and  the  lesser 
Allied  belligerents,  and  in  their  behalf,  submitted  the  final 
peace-terms  to  Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau  and  his  associates 
in  the  great  dining  hall  of  the  Trianon  Palace  Hotel  at  Versailles. 
The  terms  were  stringent ;  they  testified  eloquently  to  Germany's 
degradation. 

Throughout  the  next  six  weeks  the  world's  attention  was 
centered  upon  the  desperate  efforts  of  Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau 
and  his  fellow-delegates  to  induce  the  Council  of  Five  to  modify 
the  stringent  peace-terms.  As  oral  discussion  had  been  barred, 
the  Germans  continued  submitting  notes  of  protest  and  argu- 
ment until  May  29,  when  they  finally  produced  an  elaborate 
set  of  counterproposals  in  a  document  aggregating  some  60,000 
words.  To  this  the  Council  of  Five  on  June  16  made  an  almost 
equally  extended  reply,  chapter  for  chapter;  it  was  in  effect 
an  ultimatum  calling  for  Germany's  final  acceptance  or  refusal 
on  or  before  Monday,  June  23.  It  offered  a  number  of  con- 
cessions, but  none  of  vital  import. 

During  the  seven-day  interval  that  followed,  while  the  German 
Government  and  National  Assembly  were  in  agitated  discussion 
as  to  whether  to  sign  or  refuse  to  sign,  the  Franco-Anglo-American 
armies  of  occupation,  under  Marshal  Foch,  made  all  necessary 
preparations,  in  case  of  refusal,  to  cross  the  Rhine  in  force  and 
march  on  Berlin,  and  the  whole  world  awaited  the  outcome  calmly 
but  with  intense  interest.  Would  Germany  sign?  German 
newspapers,  German  statesmen,  the  Scheidemann  ministry,  and 
President  Ebert  said  ^'No."  The  masses  of  war-weary  people, 
led  by  the  Minority  Socialists,  said  ^'Yes."  The  first  result  in 
Germany  was  a  cabinet  crisis  :  Chancellor  Scheidemann  resigned 
and  was  succeeded  by  Gustav  Adolf  Bauer,  a  Majority  Socialist, 
with  a  colorless  and  obviously  transitional  ministry  which  was 

of  a  10,000-word  digest  constituted  the  first  and  only  knowledge  of  the  treaty 
vouchsafed  by  the  Council  of  Five  to  the  smaller  Powers.  Several  Powers  such  as 
Portugal,  France,  China,  and  Italy,  made  "  reservations."  The  complete  text  of 
the  treaty  was  not  printed  until  later. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  373 

inclined  to  sign.  Simultaneously  the  hloc  parties  —  the  Ma- 
jority Socialists,  the  Catholic  Centrists,  and  the  Democrats,  — 
fearful  lest  continued  refusal  to  sign  would  aid  the  program  of 
the  Minority  Socialists  and  of  the  Spartacan  extremists,  decided 
to  support  the  new  government;  and  on  June  23,  the  last  day 
of  grace,  the  German  National  Assembly  at  Weimar  voted  to 
accept  unconditionally  the  Allied  terms. 

Dr.  Hermann  Miiller,  the  foreign  secretary  in  the  new  German 
government,  and  Dr.  Johannes  Bell,  colonial  secretary,  were 
finally  prevailed  upon  by  Chancellor  Bauer  to  perform  the  dis- 
tasteful duty  of  signing  a  most  humiliating  treaty  of  peace. 
And  on  June  28,  1919,  in  the  Hall  of  Mirrors  in  the  stately  old 
palace  of  Louis  XIV,  the  Peace  of  Versailles  was  signed  by  the 
plenipotentiaries  of  Germany  and  by  those  of  thirty-one  ^ 
nations  leagued  against  her.  The  scene  was  that  in  which  in 
187 1  the  militaristic  German  Empire  had  been  born.  The 
date  was  that  on  which  in  19 14  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand 
of  Austria-Hungary  had  been  assassinated.  The  Great  War  thus 
formally  closed  on  the  fifth  anniversary  of  the  immediate  occasion 
of  its  outbreak,  and  its  close  officially  registered  the  death  of  the 
German  Empire. 

With  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  the  principal 
purpose  of  the  Peace  Congress  was  achieved;  and  President 
Wilson  and  many  of  the  premiers  and  "experts"  returned  home. 
Nevertheless,  Paris  remained  throughout  19 19  and  well  into  1920 
the  center  of  most  significant  international  negotiations.  The 
Supreme  AlHed  Council,  now  consisting  of  diplomatic  agents  of 
the  five  Great  Powers,  continued  to  hold  sessions  and  to  fashion 
peace-treaties  with  Austria,  Bulgaria,  Hungary,  and  Turkey,  as 
well  as  to  work  out  numerous  details  of  the  settlement  as  it 
affected  the  lesser  AlHed  Powers  and  particularly  as  it  concerned 
the  new  states  which  the  Great  War  had  brought  into  existence. 

The  final  settlements  of  1919-1920  may  now  be  rapidly 
sketched,  beginning  with  the  outstanding  provisions  of  the  treaty 
of  Versailles  between  the  Allies  and  Germany.  This  treaty,  as 
ratified  by  the  German  National  Assembly  at  Weimar  on  July  7, 
1919,  revolutionized  the  international  position  of  Germany, 
territorially,  economically,  and  militarily.  By  the  terms  of  the 
treaty,  Germany  ceded  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France,  Eupen  and 

^  Of  the  total  thirty-two  delegations  included  in  the  Allied  Conference,  the 
Chinese  alone  refused  to  sign,  because  of  the  special  concessions  to  Japan.  It  should 
be  remarked  that  General  Smuts  in  attaching  his  signature  on  behalf  of  South 
Africa  protested  bluntly  against  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  illiberahty  of  the 
victors  to  the  vanquished. 


374 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


Malmedy  to  Belgium,  Memel  to  Lithuania/  and  a  large  part  of 
the  provinces  of  Posen  and  West  Prussia  to  Poland ;   to  Poland, 

1  The  treaty  merely  provided  for  the  detaching  of  Memel  from  East  Prussia; 
the  understanding  was  that  subsequently  it  would  be  awarded  to  Lithuania. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS 


375 


moreover,  she  agreed  to  cede  Upper  Silesia,  the  southern  part 
of  East  Prussia,  and  a  strip  west  of  the  Vistula,  if  the  population 


NEW  EASTERN  BOUNDARIES  OV  GERUANY 

SCALE  OF  MILES 
0  510   20    30    40    50 


Konlggratzi 


of  these  districts  should  express  the  desire,  in  a  plebiscite  con- 
ducted under  international  auspices,  for  incorporation  within 
the  Polish  Republic,  and  in  order  to  provide  Poland  with  a  con- 


376         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

venient  access  to  the  Baltic  she  consented  to  the  estabhshment 
of  Danzig  as  an  internationaHzed  free  city;  furthermore,  she 
would  acquiesce  in  the  cession  to  Denmark  of  such  districts  of 
Schleswig  as  should  vote  accordingly  in  a  similar  plebiscite; 
and  likewise  she  would  submit  for  fifteen  years  to  the  economic 
exploitation  by  France,  and  the  political  control  by  an  inter- 
national commission,  of  the  rich  Saar  basin,  and  would  under- 
take to  abide  by  the  decision  reached  by  popular  plebiscite  at 
the  end  of  fifteen  years  as  to  whether  the  Saar  region  should 
thereafter  remain  permanently  under  international  government 
or  revert  to  Germany  or  be  ceded  outright  to  France. 

In  addition  to  territorial  cessions  in  Europe,  Germany  sur- 
rendered all  her  overseas  colonies  and  protectorates.  Her  lease 
of  Kiao-chao  and  other  privileges  in  the  Chinese  province  of 
Shantung  as  well  as  her  Pacific  islands  north  of  the  equator  went 
to  Japan ;  her  portion  of  Samoa,  to  New  Zealand ;  her  other 
Pacific  possessions  south  of  the  equator,  to  Austraha ;  German 
Southwest  Africa,  to  the  British  Union  of  South  Africa ;  German 
East  Africa,  to  Great  Britain ;  and  Kamerun  and  Togoland  were 
partitioned  between  Great  Britain  and  France.  In  most  cases 
the  Powers  receiving  German  colonies  did  so  not  as  absolute 
sovereigns  but  as  ** mandataries"  of  the  projected  League  of 
Nations,  to  which  they  would  be  required  from  time  to  time  to 
give  an  account  of  their  stewardship.  Besides,  Germany  re- 
nounced all  special  rights  and  privileges  in  China,  Siam,  Liberia, 
Morocco,  and  Egypt.  -  ^ 

Politically,  Germany  recognized  the  complete  independence 
and  full  sovereignty  of  Belgium,  and  likewise  of  German  Austria, 
Czechoslovakia,  and  Poland;  she  denounced  the  treaties  of 
Brest-Li  to  vsk  and  all  other  agreements  entered  into  by  her  with 
the  Bolshevist  government  of  Russia  and  gave  the  Allies  carte 
blanche  to  deal  as  they  would  with  Russia  not  only,  but  with 
Turkey,  Bulgaria,  Hungary,  and  Austria. 

Militarily,  Germany  promised  to  reduce  her  army  to  100,000 
men,  including  officers;  to  abolish  conscription  within  her 
territories;  to  raze  all  forts  fifty  kilometers  east  of  the  Rhine; 
to  stop  all  importation,  exportation,  and  nearly  all  production  of 
war  material;  to  reduce  her  navy  to  six  battleships,  six  light 
cruisers,  and  twelve  torpedo  boats,  without  submarines,  and  a 
personnel  of  not  more  than  15,000;  to  surrender  or  destroy  all 
other  armed  vessels ;  and  to  abandon  military  and  naval  aviation 
within  three  months.  Moreover  she  agreed  to  demolish  forti- 
fications at  Heligoland,  to  open  the  Kiel  Canal  to  all  nations^  to 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  377 

refrain  from  building  forts  on  the  Baltic,  and  to  surrender  her 
fourteen  submarine  cables.  She  specifically  agreed  to  the  trial 
of  her  War  Lord,  the  ex-Kaiser,  by  an  international  high  court 
for  a  supreme  offense  against  international  morality,^  and  of 
other  Germans  for  violation  of  the  laws  and  customs  of  war. 

By  way  of  reparation  and  economic  settlement,  Germany 
accepted  full  responsibility  for  all  damages  caused  to  the  allied 
and  associated  governments  and  nationals,  and  promised  to  re- 
imburse all  civilian  damages,  beginning  with  an  initial  payment 
of  five  billion  dollars,  subsequent  payments  being  secured  by 
bonds  to  be  issued  at  the  discretion  of  an  International  Repara- 
tion Commission.  Germany  agreed  to  pay  shipping  damage 
on  a  ton-for-ton  basis  by  cession  of  the  bulk  of  her  merchant, 
coasting,  and  river  fleets,  and  by  new  construction;  to  devote 
her  economic  resources  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  devastated 
regions;  in  particular,  to  deliver  enormous  quantities  of  coal 
and  coal-products  to  France,  Belgium,  and  Italy;  to  return 
works  of  art  removed  from  Belgium  and  France ;  and  to  deliver 
manuscripts  and  prints  equivalent  in  value  to  those  destroyed 
at  Louvain.  She  pledged  herself,  moreover,  to  return  to  the 
1 9 14  most-favored-nation  tariffs,  without  discrimination  of  any 
sort ;  to  allow  allied  and  associated  nationals  freedom  of  transit 
through  her  territories ;  and  to  accept  highly  detailed  provisions 
as  to  pre-war  debts,  unfair  competition,  internationalization  of 
roads  and  rivers,  and  other  economic  and  financial  clauses. 

Until  reparation  should  be  made  and  the  treaty  fully  carried 
out.  Allied  occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  and  of  the 
bridgeheads  at  Cologne,  Coblenz,  and  Mainz,  would  continue, 
although  provision  was  made  that  if  Germany  should  be  duly 
fulfilling  her  obligations,  Cologne  would  be  evacuated  at  the  end 
of  five  years,  Coblenz  at  the  end  of  ten  years,  and  Mainz  at  the 
end  of  fifteen  years. 

In  the  destruction  of  militaristic  Germany,  the  peace  removed 
a  chief  menace  to  the  free  development  of  democratic  peoples. 
But  the  treaty  of  Versailles  went  further,  and  in  two  significant 
and  novel  respects  attempted  to  deal  with  the  social  unrest  and 
international  anarchy  which  had  hitherto  prevailed  throughout 

^  In  accordance  with  this  provision,  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy,  in  January, 
1920,  asked  the  Netherlands  Government  to  surrender  William  II  for  trial  on  the 
charge  of  "moral"  ofifenses,  such  as  the  breaking  of  a  treaty  by  the  invasion  of 
Belgium,  the  authorization  of  ruthless  submarine  warfare,  and  the  use  of  poisonous 
gas.  Queen  Wilhelmina's  advisers  refused  to  comply  mth  the  request  on  the 
ground  that  no  existing  international  court  had  legal  jurisdiction  and  that  the 
Dutch  people  "could  not  betray  the  faith  of  those  who  have  confided  themselves 
to  their  free  institutions." 


378         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  world.  One  section  of  the  treaty  sought  to  eradicate  many 
of  the  evils  inhering  in  the  old  individualistic  doctrine  and  selfish 
practice  of  coequal  sovereign  states,  by  establishing  a  League 
of  Nations.  Another  section  recognized  the  relations  between 
capital  and  labor  everywhere  as  matters  of  international  concern. 
These  provisions  were  designed  quite  as  much  for  the  Allies  them- 
selves, and  even  for  neutral  Powers,  as  for  Germany. 

Thus,  the  treaty  of  Versailles  provided  for  the  formation  of 
a  permanent  world-organization  of  labor,  consisting  of  an  annual 
International  Labor  Conference  and  an  International  Labor 
Office.  The  former  was  to  be  composed  of  four  representatives 
of  each  state,  two  from  the  government  and  one  each  from  the 
employers  and  the  workingmen,  and  to  act  as  a  deliberative 
body,  its  measures  taking  the  form  of  draft  conventions  or  recom- 
mendations for  legislation,  which,  if  passed  by  two-thirds  vote, 
must  be  submitted  to  the  law-making  authority  in  every  state 
participating.  Each  government  was  left  free  to  enact  such 
recommendations  into  law;  approve  the  principle,  but  adapt 
them  to  local  needs;  leave  the  actual  legislation  in  case  of  a 
federal  state  to  local  legislatures ;  or  reject  the  recommendations 
altogether  without  further  obligation.  The  International  Labor 
Office  was  to  be  conducted  at  the  seat  of  the  League  of  Nations ; 
its  chief  functions  would  be  the  collection  and  distribution  of 
information  on  labor  throughout  the  world,  the  preparation  of 
agenda  for  the  Labor  Conferences,  and  the  oversight  of  the  en- 
forcement of  labor  conventions  between  states. 

Nine  principles  of  labor  conditions  were  specifically  recognized 
by  the  treaty  of  Versailles  on  the  ground  that  *'the  well-being, 
physical,  moral,  and  intellectual,  of  industrial  wage-earners  is  of 
supreme  international  importance."  With  exceptions  necessi- 
tated by  differences  of  climate,  habits,  and  economic  develop- 
ment, the  most  significant  of  these  principles  were  affirmed  to 
be  :  (i)  that  labor  should  not  be  regarded  merely  as  a  commodity 
or  article  of  commerce;  (2)  right  of  association  of  employers 
and  employees ;  (3)  a  wage  adequate  to  maintain  a  reasonable 
standard  of  life ;  (4)  the  eight-hour  day  or  forty-eight  hour  week ; 
(5)  a  weekly  rest  of  at  least  twenty-four  hours,  which  should 
include  Sunday  wherever  practicable;  (6)  abolition  of  child 
labor  and  assurance  of  the  continuation  of  the  education  and 
proper  physical  development  of  children ;  (7)  equal  pay  for  equal 
work  as  between  men  and  women;  (8)  equitable  economic 
treatment  of  all  workers,  including  foreigners ;  and  (9)  a  system 
of  inspection  in  which  women  should  take  part. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  379 

In  accordance  with  the  treaty,  the  first  meeting  of  the  Inter- 
national Labor  Conference  was  held  at  Washington,  in  October 
and  November,  19 19,  and  the  new  labor  era  was  ushered  in  by 
discussions  at  that  time  of  the  prevention  of  unemployment,  the 
extension  and  application  of  the  international  conventions  adopted 
at  Berne  in  1906  prohibiting  night  work  for  women  and  the  use 
of  white  phosphorus  in  the  manufacture  of  matches,  and  the 
employment  of  women  and  children  at  night  or  in  unhealthy 
work. 

Recognition  of  the  international  importance  of  labor  questions 
was  one  of  the  most  promising  achievements  of  the  Paris  Peace 
Congress  of  191 9.  Another,  even  more  sensational,  was  the 
recognition  of  the  evils  inherent  in  pre-war  international  anarchy 
and  the  resulting  determination  on  the  part  of  President  Wilson 
and  his  associates  at  Paris  to  institute  a  new  world-order  of 
international  cooperation.  The  Covenant  of  the  League  of 
Nations,^  as  proposed  and  adopted  by  the  Preliminary  Peace 
Conference,  appeared  in  the  treaty  of  Versailles  as  Section  One ; 
and  with  the  Covenant  the  whole  settlement  of  191 9  was  in- 
extricably bound  up. 

As  established  by  the  Covenant,  the  League  of  Nations  com- 
prised all  the  allied-  and  associated  powers  and  most  neutrals, 
excluding  (at  the  start)  only  Germany,  Austria,  Hungary,  Bul- 
garia, Turkey,  Russia,  Mexico,  and  Costa  Rica.  In  the  future 
any  state,  dominion,  or  colony  might  be  admitted  to  member- 
ship by  two-thirds  vote  of  the  Assembly,  and  any  state  upon 
giving  two  years'  notice  might  withdraw  if  it  had  fulfilled  its 
international  obligations.  The  organs  of  the  League  were  to 
be :  (i)  a  permanent  Secretariat,  with  headquarters  at  Geneva 
in  Switzerland;  (2)  an  Assembly,  consisting  of  representatives 
of  the  several  members  of  the  League  (each  member  having  one 
vote  and  not  more  than  three  representatives),  and  meeting  at 
stated  intervals ;  and  (3)  a  Council,  composed  of  representatives 
of  the  five  Great  Allied  Powers,  —  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan,  —  together  with  representa- 
tives of  four  other  members  selected  from  time  to  time  by  the 
Assembly,  and  normally  taking  decisions  by  unanimous  vote. 

The  members  of  the  League  undertook  ''to  respect  and  pre- 
serve as  against  external  aggression  the  territorial  integrity 
and  existing  pohtical  independence"  of  one  another.  Further- 
more, the  members  pledged  themselves  to  submit  matters  of 
dispute  to  arbitration  or  inquiry  and  not  to  resort  to  war  with 

1  See  Appendix,  below,  p.  413. 


38o        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

one  another  until  three  months  after  the  award.  Awards  might 
take  the  form  of  judicial  decisions  or  simply  of  advisory  opinion ; 
normally  they  would  be  rendered  by  a  Permanent  Court  of 
International  Justice,  for  the  establishment  of  which  the  Council 
should  forthwith  formulate  plans.  Members  not  submitting 
their  case  to  this  Court  must  accept  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Council  itself  or  of  the  Assembly;  in  the  former  instance,  the 
Council  would  make  award  by  unanimous  vote  (not  counting 
the  parties  to  the  dispute) ;  in  the  latter  instance,  the  Assembly 
would  make  award  by  unanimous  vote  of  its  members  represented 
on  the  Council  and  a  simple  majority  of  the  rest  (not  counting 
the  parties  to  the  dispute).  Members  agreed  to  carry  out 
arbitral  awards,  and  not  to  go  to  war  with  any  party  to  a  dis- 
pute which  should  comply  with  the  award.  If  a  member  should 
fail  to  carry  out  an  award,  the  Council  would  propose  ''the  nec- 
essary measures."  Members  resorting  to  war  in  disregard  of 
the  Covenant  would  immediately  be  debarred  from  all  inter- 
course with  other  members,  and  the  Council  would  in  such  cases 
consider  what  military  or  naval  action  could  be  taken  by  the 
League  collectively  against  the  offending  party.  Similarly, 
upon  any  war  or  threat  of  war  by  any  outside  Power  against 
any  member  of  the  League,  the  Council  would  promptly  meet  to 
consider  what  common  action  should  be  taken. 

The  Covenant  formally  abrogated  all  obligations  between 
members  of  the  League  inconsistent  with  its  terms,  but  expressly 
affirmed  ''the  validity  of  international  engagements,  such  as 
treaties  of  arbitration  or  regional  understandings  like  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  for  securing  the  maintenance  of  the  peace  of  the 
world."  It  especially  provided,  also,  that  all  treaties  or  inter- 
national engagements  concluded  after  the  institution  of  the 
League  should  be  registered  with  the  Secretariat  and  pubHshed, 
and  that  the  Assembly  might  from  time  to  time  advise  members 
to  reconsider  treaties  which  had  become  inapplicable  or  involved 
danger  to  peace.  To  the  Council  was  intrusted  the  important 
function  of  preparing  plans  for  a  general  reduction  of  arma- 
ments; these  plans  were  to  be  revised  every  ten  years,  and, 
once  adopted,  no  member  must  exceed  the  armaments  fixed, 
without  the  Council's  concurrence. 

Under  the  general  supervision  of  the  League  of  Nations  were 
placed  the  International  Labor  Organization  and  its  activities, 
the  execution  of  agreements  for  the  suppression  of  traffic  in 
women  and  children  and  for  the  control  of  trade  in  arms  and 
ammunition,  the  assurance  of  equitable  treatment  for  commerce 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  381 

of  all  members  of  the  League,  and  the  international  prevention 
and  control  of  disease.  International  bureaus  and  commissions 
already  estabhshed  were  subordinated  to  the  League,  as  well  as 
all  those  to  be  established  in  the  future. 

In  addition  to  its  general  duties,  the  League  of  Nations  was 
intrusted  by  the  treaty  of  Versailles  with  several  specific  duties 
in  connection  with  the  German  settlement.  Thus,  the  League 
might  question  'Germany  at  any  time  for  a  violation  of  the 
neutralized  zone  east  of  the  Rhine ;  it  would  appoint  three  of  the 
five  members  of  the  Saar  Commission,  oversee  its  regime,  and 
conduct  the  plebiscite;  it  would  designate  the  High  Com- 
missioner of  Danzig,  guarantee  the  independence  of  the  Free 
City,  and  arrange  for  treaties  between  Danzig  and  Germany 
and  Poland;  it  would  work  out  the  mandatary  system  to  be 
applied  to  the  former  German  colonies ;  it  would  act  as  a  final 
court  in  the  plebiscites  in  Schleswig  and  on  the  PoHsh  frontiers, 
and  in  the  disputes  as  to  the  Kiel  Canal ;  and  it  would  decide 
certain  of  the  economic  and  financial  problems  arising  from  the 
war. 

The  French  Government,  still  fearful  of  a  German  ^'war  of 
revenge,''  would  have  preferred  to  have  obtained  further  mihtary 
guarantees  from  Germany  and  to  have  strengthened  the  Covenant 
by  providing  for  a  permanent  international  General  Staff  which 
should  direct  the  military  action  of  the  League  of  Nations  in 
resisting  any  attempted  German  aggression  in  the  future.  To 
molhfy  the  French  and  meet  their  criticisms.  President  Wilson 
and  Premier  Lloyd  George  concluded  on  June  28  special  treaties 
respectively  between  the  United  States  and  France  and  between 
France  and  Great  Britain,  by  the  terms  of  which  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  would  be  bound  to  come  immediately 
to  the  aid  of  France  if  any  unprovoked  act  of  aggression  should 
be  made  against  her  by  Germany.  It  was  specifically  provided 
that  these  treaties  should  be  submitted  to  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  which  would  decide  whether  to  recognize 
them  as  engagements  in  conformity  with  the  League  Covenant ; 
in  the  meantime,  the  Franco-American  treaty  should  be  sub- 
mitted for  approval  to  the  United  States  Senate  and  the  French 
Parliament. 

The  treaty  of  Versailles,  including  the  Labor  Convention  and 
the  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations,  was  ratified  by  Ger- 
many on  July  7,  by  France  on  October  13,  by  Great  Britain 
and  Italy  on  October  15,  and  by  Japan  on  October  30.  China 
accepted  it,  with  reservations  concerning  the  cession  of  Shantung 


382         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

to  Japan,  on  September  24;  and  most  of  the  other  signatories 
ratified  it  promptly.  In  the  case  of  the  United  States,  President 
Wilson  encountered  extraordinary  opposition  from  the  Repub- 
lican majority  in  the  Senate  and  even  from  certain  members  of 
his  own  pohtical  party.  Among  his  opponents  were  those  who 
specially  objected  to  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  as 
tending  to  impair  American  sovereignty  and  vitiate  certain 
constitutional  powers  of  the  American  Congress,  or  as  tending 
further  to  entangle  the  United  States  in  the  meshes  of  Old- 
World  diplomacy;  there  were  those  likewise  who  were  bitterly 
disappointed  with  the  terms  of  peace  with  Germany,  particu- 
larly the  concessions  to  Japan  and  to  Great  Britain,  and  who 
were  unwilling  that  the  United  States  should  underwrite  a 
''vicious"  and  '' unjust"  peace;  and  there  were  doubtless  those 
who  felt  that  President  Wilson  had  treated  the  Senate  altogether 
too  cavalierly,  as  well  as  those  who  were  fearful  lest  a  Demo- 
cratic President  should  derive  political  capital  from  a  radical 
change  in  American  foreign  policy.  For  months  a  deadlock 
ensued  between  the  President  and  the  Senate  Majority,  the 
latter  insisting  upon  ''reservations"  which  the  former  would  not 
accept.  The  Senate  in  November,  19 19,  adopted,  by  majority 
vote,  some  fifteen  drastic  reservations  to  the  treaty  of  Versailles, 
but  failed  to  secure  the  necessary  two-thirds  vote  for  the  ratifi- 
cation of  the  treaty  with  these  reservations.  Thenceforth 
various  efforts  were  made  to  reach  a  compromise;  and  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1920,  it  looked  as  though  the  United  States  would  shortly 
ratify  the  treaty  with  somewhat  milder  reservations  than  those 
originally  adopted  by  the  Senate  in  November.^  As  yet  it  was 
extremely  doubtful  whether  the  United  States  Senate  would 
ratify  the  Franco-American  AlHance  Treaty,  although  its  com- 
plement had  already  been  ratified  by  Great  Britain.^ 

The  Allies  delayed  for  some  time  to  put  the  treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles into  effect,  hoping  that  the  United  States  would  join 
them  in  ratifying  the  document.  At  length,  however,  on  Jan- 
uary 10,  1920,  representatives  of  all  the  Powers  which  to  date 
had  approved  the  Versailles  Treaty  deposited  their  certificates 
of  ratification  at  Paris  and  signed  the  proces-verbal  which  put 
the  treaty  into  effect.  This  ceremony,  which  formally  ended 
the  Great  War,  was  discharged  in  the  Clock  Hall  of  the  French 
Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.     Fourteen  allied   and   associated 

1  For  these  Senate  Reservations  of  November,  1919,  see  Appendix  II. 

2  For  the  proposed  treaty  of  Triple  Alliance  between  France  and  Great  Britain, 
and  France  and  the  United  States,  see  Appendix  III. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  383 

Powers  on  the  one  hand,  —  France,  Great  Britain,  Italy,  Japan, 
Belgium,  Bolivia,  Brazil,  Guatemala,  Panama,  Peru,  Poland, 
Siam,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Uruguay,  —  and  Germany  on  the 
other,  made  peace  and  again  became  ''friendly  nations."  The 
United  States  did  not  participate,  nor  did  China,  Greece,  or 
Rumania. 

On  January  16,  1920,  pursuant  to  the  call  of  President  Wilson, 
the  first  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  was 
held  in  Paris.  It  comprised  representatives  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  Italy,  Japan,  Spain,  Belgium,  and  Brazil.  Leon  Bour- 
geois, the  French  representative,  was  elected  chairman,  and 
Sir  Eric  Drummond  was  installed  as  permanent  secretary;  and 
the  Council  prepared  to  arrange  for  the  convocation  of  the 
League  Assembly,  and  to  take  up  and  continue  the  manifold 
labors  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Peace  Conference,  which 
formally  disbanded  on  January  20. 

The  settlement  of  19 19-1920  was  effected  not  only  by  the 
Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations,  by  the  proposed  new  Triple 
Alliance  of  France,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States,  by  the 
novel  Labor  Convention,  and  by  the  drastic  terms  of  the  treaty 
of  Versailles  with  Germany,  but  also  by  the  series  of  peace 
treaties  concluded  by  the  AlHes  in  turn  with  Austria,  with  Bul- 
garia, with  Hungary,  and  with  Turkey,  and  likewise  by  a  vast 
number  of  special  engagements  entered  into  among  the  allied 
and  associated  Powers  themselves. 

Austria,  by  the  treaty  signed  at  St.  Germain  on  September  10, 
19 1 9,  and  ratified  by  the  Austrian  National  Assembly  on  October 
17,  was  required  to  recognize  the  complete  independence  of 
Hungary,  Czechoslovakia,  Poland,  the  Serbo-Croat-Slovene 
State  (Serbia),  and  to  cede  various  territories  which  previously, 
in  union  with  her,  composed  the  Dual  Monarchy  of  Austria- 
Hungary.  Austria  was  left  thereby  a  small  independent  German 
republic,  with  an  area  of  five  thousand  to  six  thousand  square 
miles  and  a  population  of  between  six  and  seven  millions.  She 
was  deprived  of  seaports  and  her  army  was  restricted  to  30,000 
men. 

From  Bulgaria  were  taken,  by  the  treaty  signed  at  Neuilly, 
near  Paris,  on  November  27,  19 18,  most  of  the  territories  which 
she  had  appropriated  in  the  Balkan  wars  of  1912-1913  and 
all  her  conquests  in  the  Great  War;  the  Dobrudja  went  to 
Rumania;  the  greater  part  of  Macedonia,  to  Serbia;  and  the 
Thracian  coast,  to  the  Allies,  who  seemed  disposed  to  award  it 
eventually  to   Greece  with  an  understanding  that  Bulgarian 


384        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

goods  might  be  transported  across  it  duty-free.  Bulgaria  was 
obliged  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  approximately  $445,000,000,  and 
to  reduce  her  army  to  20,000  men,  with  a  police-force  not  exceed- 
ing 10,000. 

With  Hungary,  the  Allies  encountered  exceptional  difficulties 
in  making  peace,  for  a  radical  Socialist  revolution  at  Budapest 
on  March  21  overthrew  the  government  of  Count  Karolyi  and 
set  up  a  Soviet  government  under  Bela  Kun,  a  former  associate 
of  Lenin  and  Trotsky,  the  Russian  Bolshevist  leaders ;  and  Bela 
Kun  pursued  most  dilatory  and  annoying  tactics  in  deahng  with 
the  Allies.  It  was  not  until  Rumanian  troops  invaded  the 
country  and  approached  the  capital,  in  August,  that  Bela  Kun 
was  driven  from  power  and  replaced  by  a  Provisional  Govern- 
ment under  Archduke  Joseph,  which  resumed  negotiations  for 
peace.  As  ultimately  arranged,  Hungary  was  stripped  of  non- 
Magyar  peoples  as  completely  as  Austria  had  been  shorn  of 
non- German  peoples  :  Slovakia  went  to  Czechoslovakia ;  Tran- 
sylvania was  ceded  to  Rumania ;  Croatia  was  incorporated  into 
the  Kingdom  of  the  Serbs,  Croats,  and  Slovenes ;  and  the  Banat 
was  divided  between  Rumania  and  Serbia.  Hungary  itself 
shrank  from  a  maritime,  imperialistic  country  of  125,000  square 
miles  and  twenty-two  million  inhabitants  into  a  landlocked 
national  Magyar  state  of  nine  millions  with  a  trivial  army  of 
30,000  men. 

The  conclusion  of  peace  with  the  Ottoman  Empire  was  an 
even  slower  process.  Allied  diplomatists  obviously  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  Constantinople,  now  that  Russia  had 
collapsed,  and  they  were  embarrassed  by  protracted  disputes 
between  France  and  Great  Britain  over  Syria,  and  between  Italy 
and  Greece  over  Asia  Minor.  By  February,  1920,  however,  the 
general  outlines  of  the  probable  settlement  in  the  Near  East 
were  becoming  clear:  the  Arab  state  of  Hedjaz,  embracing  the 
territory  east  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the  River  Jordan  and  the 
towns  of  Damascus  and  Aleppo,  would  become  autonomous, 
under  a  British  mandate;  Armenia  would  become  a  free  Chris- 
tian republic,  under  international  auspices;  and,  probably  as 
mandataries  of  the  League  of  Nations,  Great  Britain  would  take 
Palestine  and  Mesopotamia,  France  would,  secure  Syria  and 
Cilicia,  Italy  would  appropriate  Adalia,  and  Greece  would  ob- 
tain Smyrna  and  adjacent  territory  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 
It  appeared  certain  that  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Bosphorus 
would  be  internationalized  and  that  Turkey's  future  would  be 
that  of  a  small  national  state  confined  mainly  to  Asia  Minor. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  385 

Among  the  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  various  other 
territorial  and  commercial  matters  were  the  subject  of  nego- 
tiation in  1919-1920.  Thus,  in  November,  1919,  Poland  was 
given  a  twenty-five  year  mandate  to  Eastern  GaUcia,  with  its 
sixteen  million  inhabitants,  a  majority  of  whom  are  Ruthenians 
(Ukrainians) ;  and  arrangements  were  made  for  a  plebiscite  in 
Teschen,  to  determine  whether  that  district  should  go  to  Poland 
or  to  Czechoslovakia.  Furthermore,  Greece  and  Italy  agreed 
to  settle  their  outstanding  differences :  Italy  would  yield  to 
Greece  southern  Albania  and  the  twelve  islands  in  the  JEgesm 
which  had  been  under  Italian  rule  since  the  Tripolitan  War  of 
1911-1912  ;  in  return,  Greece  would  lease  to  Italy  the  site  of  a 
coaling  station  in  the  Mgesm  islands  and  would  recognize  an 
Italian  protectorate  over  the  greater  part  of  Albania.  Then, 
too,  in  November,  1919,  the  Arctic  archipelago  of  Spitzbergen, 
hitherto  a  ^'no  man's  land,"  was  ceded  to  Norway.  And  a 
special  convention  between  Belgium  and  the  Netherlands,  con- 
cluded in  1920,  freed  navigation  on  the  Scheldt  from  onerous 
Dutch  restrictions  and  otherwise  relieved  Belgium  of  burden- 
some disabilities  imposed  upon  her  by  the  treaty  of  1839,  which 
had  recognized  her  independence. 

To  draw  a  boundary-line  along  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Adri- 
atic between  Italy  and  Jugoslavia  (Serbia)  proved  peculiarly 
troublesome.  So  long  as  the  Orlando  cabinet  was  in  power  at 
Rome,  Italy  vehemently  demanded  the  cession  to  her,  not  only 
of  the  Adriatic  islands  and  that  part  of  Dalmatia  pledged  her  by 
the  secret  treaties  of  191 5  and  191 7,  but  the  important  port  of 
Fiume  also,  —  a  demand  stubbornly  rejected  both  by  the  Jugo- 
slavs and  by  the  American  President.  With  the  advent  to 
power  of  the  more  conciliatory  Italian  cabinet  of  Francesco 
Nitti  in  July,  191 9,  the  outlook  for  a  mutually  acceptable  com- 
promise grew  brighter,  only  to  be  overcast,  however,  in  Septem- 
ber, by  the  forcible  seizure  of  Fiume  by  a  free-lance  Italian  expe- 
dition under  Gabriele  d'Annunzio,  the  ultra-patriotic  poet- 
soldier-adventurer.  D'Annunzio  posed  as  a  twentieth-century 
Garibaldi,  and  even  surpassed  his  illustrious  prototype  in  rhe- 
torical exuberance  and  likewise  in  creating  embarrassment  for 
the  Italian  Government.  D'Annunzio  won  a  plebiscite  in 
Fiume  and  raided  the  town  of  Zara  in  Dalmatia ;  but  the  gen- 
eral Italian  election,  in  November,  1919,  registered  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  ItaHan  people  as  disposed  to  support 
Nitti  rather  than  D'Annunzio,  and  late  in  January,  1920,  the 
ItaHan  Government  agreed  to  a  compromise  proposed  by  the 


386         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Allied  Supreme  Council,  by  which  both  Fiume  and  Zara  would 
be  internationalized  under  the  auspices  of  the  League  of  Nations ; 
Italy  would  secure  the  eastern  Adriatic  coast  as  far  south  as 
Fiume,  the  greater  part  of  Albania,  and  the  Adriatic  islands  of 
Lissa  and  Lesina;  and  Serbia  would  obtain  the  other  Adriatic 
islands,  Dalmatia,  and  a  northern  strip  of  Albania.  Against 
this  compromise,  however,  the  Jugoslavs  protested,  and  in  Feb- 
ruary the  deadlock  still  persisted. 

A  whole  series  of  treaties  was  concluded  by  the  Great  Powers 
with  the  several  states  which  had  recently  come  into  existence  — 
Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  Finland,  etc.,  —  and  likewise  with  those 
lesser  Powers  whose  national  unifications  had  been  achieved  in 
the  course  of  the  Great  War  —  Rumania,  Serbia,  and  Greece. 
These  treaties  contained  provisions  relating  to  boundaries,  to  the 
assumption  of  debts  of  annexed  regions,  and  to  commercial 
affairs.  In  most  instances,  moreover,  they  contained  provisions 
guaranteeing  certain  rights  and  privileges  to  racial  or  religious 
minorities  within  these  states.  In  the  case  of  Poland,  and  in  that 
of  Rumania,  special  protection  was  deemed  necessary  for  the 
Jews ;  in  the  case  of  Serbia,  it  was  the  CathoKcs ;  in  the  case  of 
Czechoslovakia,  it  was  the  German  minority  in  Bohemia. 

In  all  these  cases  much  the  same  phraseology  was  utilized  as 
in  the  treaty  concluded  by  the  Allies  with  German  Austria: 
"Austria  undertakes  to  bring  her  institutions  into  conformity 
with  the  principles  of  liberty  and  justice  and  acknowledges  that 
the  obligations  for  the  protection  of  minorities  are  matters  of 
international  concern  over  which  the  League  of  Nations  has 
jurisdiction.  She  assures  complete  protection  of  life  and  liberty 
to  all  inhabitants  of  Austria,  without  distinction  of  birth,  lan- 
guage, race,  or  religion,  together  with  the  right  to  the  free  exercise 
of  any  creed.  All  Austrian  nationals  without  distinction  of 
race,  language,  or  rehgion  are  to  be  equal  before  the  law.  No 
restrictions  are  to  be  imposed  on  the  free  use  of  any  language 
in  private  or  pubhc,  and  reasonable  facilities  are  to  be  given  to 
Austrian  nationals  of  non- German  speech  for  the  use  of  their 
language  before  the  courts.  Austrian  nationals  belonging  to 
racial,  rehgious,  or  linguistic  minorities  are  to  enjoy  the  same 
protection  as  other  Austrian  nationals,  in  particular  in  regard 
to  schools  and  other  educational  establishments  and  in  districts 
where  a  considerable  portion  of  Austrian  nationals  of  other  than 
German  speech  are  resident ;  facilities  are  to  be  given  in  schools 
for  the  instruction  of  children  in  their  own  language  and  an 
equable  share  of  public  funds  is  to  be  provided  for  the  purpose. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  387 

These  provisions  do  not  preclude  the  Austrian  Government  from 
making  the  teaching  of  German  obHgatory.  They  are  to  be 
embodied  by  Austria  in  her  fundamental  law  as  a  bill  of  rights, 
and  provisions  regarding  them  are  to  be  under  the  protection 
of  the  League  of  Nations." 

Such  were  the  salient  points  in  the  settlement  effected  in 
1919-1920  by  the  host  of  statesmen,  diplomatists,  and  ^'experts/' 
There  were  still  a  vast  number  of  intricate  and  perplexing  prob- 
lems to  be  faced  and  solved  by  the  Great  Powers  before  the  world 
could  properly  be  pronounced  "normal"  and  "settled."  There 
were  treaties  to  be  ratified  and  put  in  force.  There  was  the 
League  of  Nations  to  be  provided  with  machinery  and  precedents. 
There  was  the  dilatory  and  doubtful  action  of  the  United  States. 
There  was  the  uncertain  status  of  Esthonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania, 
and  Ukrainia.  There  were  no  defined  eastern  boundaries  of 
Poland.  There  were  outstanding  imperiaHstic  difficulties  in 
Asia,  in  Africa,  and  in  America.  There  were  the  grievances  of 
China  against  Japan,  and  of  Ireland  against  Great  Britain.^ 
Above  all,  there  was  Bolshevism  in  Russia,  chaos  in  one  of  the 
largest  countries  on  the  surface  of  the  globe.^ 

1  As  a  result  of  the  unwillingness  or  inability  of  the  British  Government  to  carry 
into  effect  the  Home  Rule  Act  of  1914,  Ireland  had  grown  steadily  more  restive, 
until  the  general  election  of  December,  19 18,  returned  from  the  unhappy  island 
26  Ulster  Unionists,  6  NationaHsts,  and  73  Sinn  Feiners.  Sinn  Fein  thus  secured 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  Irish  votes,  and,  by  a  sort  of  referendum,  Ireland 
declared  in  no  uncertain  terms  for  the  right  of  independent,  national  self-determi- 
nation. The  Sinn  Feiners  who  were  elected  to  Parliament,  refusing  to  take  part  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  British  House  of  Commons  at  Westminster,  assembled  in 
Dubhn,  proclaimed  the  independence  of  their  country,  drafted  a  democratic  con- 
stitution, elected  Eamonn  de  Valera  president  and  appointed  plenipotentiaries  to 
the  Peace  Congress.  The  British  Government  would  not  treat  with  the  "pro- 
visional government"  at  Dublin  or  allow  the  Irish  Question  to  be  discussed  at 
Paris.  President  Wilson,  it  is  true,  received  a  committee  representing  Irish- 
Americans  and  listened  to  their  pleas  in  behalf  of  Ireland,  but  Premier  Lloyd  George 
dechned  even  to  receive  them.  Subsequently,  in  September,  1919,  the  "Irish 
Parliament"  was  suppressed  by  the  British  Government;  and  throughout  1919 
Ireland  was  ruled  with  a  rod  of  iron.  At  the  end  of  the  year  a  new  project  for 
Irish  Home  Rule  was  put  forward  by  the  British  Government,  involving  the  crea- 
tion of  separate  parliaments  for  Ulster  and  for  the  rest  of  Ireland  and  of  a  joint 
"  Council  of  Ireland,"  but  it  was  opposed  both  by  the  Ulster  Unionists  and  by  the 
Sinn  Feiners. 

2  The  Allies  failed  signally  in  1919  to  solve  the  "Russian  Question."  In  Jan- 
uary they  proposed  a  conference  of  all  Russian  factions  and  "governments"  on 
Prinkipo  Island,  in  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  under  their  auspices;  the  Bolsheviki 
accepted,  and  likewise  the  Esthonians,  Letts,  Lithuanians,  and  Ukrainians,  but 
the  opposition  of  anti-Bolshevist  Russians  was  so  acute  and  the  Allies  themselves 
were  so  irresolute  that  the  project  was  soon  dropped.  The  Allies  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  recognize  the  Bolshevist  regime  at  Moscow,  although  Lenin  assured 
them  that  the  Soviet  Government  would  agree  to  assume  the  foreign  indebtedness 
of  previous  Russian  governments.  On  the  other  hand,  they  did  not  give  sufficient 
aid  to  Admiral  Kolchak  or  other  anti-Bolshevist  Russian  leaders  to  bring  about  the 


388         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Yet  at  the  beginning  of  1920  enough  of  a  settlement  had  already 
been  reached,  and  the  settlement  was  sufficiently  revolutionary, 
to  justify  us  in  hailing  it  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  In  the 
following  section  we  shall  undertake  roughly  to  estimate  what 
the  settlement  had  cost  Europe  and  the  world  in  the  five  years  of 
warfare  from  the  assassination  of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdi- 
nand, on  June  28,  1914,  to  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of  Versailles, 
on  June  28,  1919.  Then,  in  the  concluding  section,  we  shall 
make  bold  to  state  wherein,  as  we  think,  lies  the  significance  of 
the  new  era,  the  real  meaning  of  the  Great  War. 

THE  LOSSES 

The  Great  War  was  indeed  a  cataclysm ;  and  commensurate 
with  the  revolutionary  peace  settlement  which  followed  it  were 
the  gigantic  losses  in  life  and  property  which  attended  it.  Six- 
teen estabHshed  states  —  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia, 
France,  the  British  Empire,  Italy,  the  United  States,  Japan, 
Belgium,  Turkey,  Serbia,  Montenegro,  Bulgaria,  Rumania, 
Greece,  and  Portugal,  —  and  three  new  ones  which  the  war 
brought  forth  —  Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Hedjaz,  —  as- 
sembled their  human  powers  for  the  conflict  —  fifteen  on  one 
side  and  four  on  the  other.  Against  one  or  moje  of  the  four, 
eleven  other  nations  also  declared  war,  but  engaged  in  it  less 
actively,  —  Brazil,  China,  Costa  Rica,  Cuba,  Guatemala,  Haiti, 
Honduras,  Liberia,  Nicaragua,  Panama,  and  Siam.  Of  the  re- 
maining twenty  independent  nations  of  the  world,  five  —  Bolivia, 
Ecuador,  Peru,  Santo  Domingo,  and  Uruguay  —  severed  diplo- 
matic relations  with  one  or  more  of  the  four  original  aggressors, 
and  one  —  Persia  —  became  a  battle-ground  of  contending  forces. 
Only  fourteen  independent  states  on  the  earth's  surface  pre- 
served neutrality  —  Abyssinia,  Argentina,  Chile,  Colombia, 
Denmark,  Mexico,  Netherlands,  Norway,  Paraguay,  Salvador, 
Spain,  Sweden,  Switzerland,  and  Venezuela.  All  states,  neu- 
tral as  well  as  belHgerent,  were  seriously  aflfected  by  the  Great 
War. 

The  toll  of  human  life  taken  by  the  Great  War  was  simply 
astounding.  The  table  printed  below  gives  the  most  rehable 
estimates  regarding  the  man-power  employed  and  the  casualties 

downfall  of  Lenin  by  force  of  arms.  While  declaring  that  their  intervention  in 
Russia  was  aimed  at  relieving  the  distress  and  suffering  of  the  Russian  people,  they 
enforced  with  great  rigor  an  economic  blockade  against  the  Bolsheviki,  thereby 
inflicting  no  slight  hardship  upon  the  most  populous  regions  of  Russia.  It  was  not 
until  January  16,  1920,  that  the  Alhed  Supreme  Council  raised  the  blockade. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS 


389 


suffered  by  the  sixteen  nations  which  were  officially  mobilized 
for  the  war  and  took  an  active  part  in  it. 

Mobilized  Strength  and  Casualty  Losses  of  the  Belligerents* 
Central  Powers 


Nation 

Mobilized 

Dead 

Wounded 

Prisoners 

OR 

Missing 

Total 
Casualties 

Germany 

Austria-Hungary     .     . 

Turkey 

Bulgaria 

11,000,000 

6,500,000 

1,600,000 

400,000 

1,611,104 
800,000 
300,000 
101,224 

3,683,143 

3,200,000 

570,000 

152,399 

772,522 

1,211,000 

130,000 

10,825 

6,066,769 

5,211,000 

1,000,000 

264,448 

Total 

19,500,000 

2,812,328 

7,605,542 

2,124,347 

12,542,217 

Allied  and  Associated  Powers 


Nation 

Mobilized 

Dead 

Wounded 

Prisoners 

OR 

Missing 

Total 
Casualties 

Russia  .     .     . 
France  .     .     . 
British  Empire 
Italy      .     .     . 
United  States 
Japan    .     .     . 
Belgium     .     . 
Serbia   .     .     . 
Montenegro    . 
Rumania    .     . 
Greece  .     .     . 
Portugal    .     . 

12,000,000 
7,500,000 
7,500,000 
5,500,000 
4,272,521 
800,006 
267,000 

707,343 
50,000 
750,000 
230,000 
100,000 

1,700,000 

1,385,300 

692,065 

460,000 

67,813 

300 

20,000 

322,000 

3,000 

200,000 

15,000 

4,000 

4,950,000 
2,675,000 

2,037,325 

947,000 

192,483 

907 

60,000 

28,000 

10,000 

1 20,000 

40,000 

15,000 

2,500,000 

446,300 

360,367 

1,393,000 

14,363 

3 

10,000 

100,000 

7,000 

80,000 

45,000 

200 

9,150,000 
4,506,600 
3,089,757 
2,800,000 

274,659 
1,210 

90,000 
450,000 

20,000 
400,000 
100,000 

10,000 

Total  .     . 

39,676,864 

4,869,478 

11,075,715 

4,956,233 

20,892,226 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the  Polish  combatants  with  the 
Allies  numbered  150,000;  that  the  Czechoslovak  armies  in 
Siberia,  France,  and  Italy  included  180,000  nationals;  that  the 
sultan  of  Hedjaz  fought  the  Turk  with  250,000  Arabs.  These 
three  new  nations,  therefore,  employed  a  combatant  force  of 
580,000  men,  which  was  joined  to  the  Allies'  39,676,864  against 
the  Central  Powers'  19,500,000. 

Nearly  sixty  million  men  at  war!  Of  this  huge  number 
nearly  eight  millions  died  and  approximately  six  millions  (or 
thirty  per  cent,  of  the  wounded)  became  human  wrecks.     But 

1  Much  of  this  statistical  information  is  taken  from  an  interesting  article  by 
Walter  Littlefield  in  The  New  York  Times  Current  History  for  February,  19 19, 
pp.  239  et  sqq. 


390        A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

this  only  refers  to  the  soldiers  and  sailors  who  died  or  were 
irreparably  maimed.  Civilians  suffered  even  more  grievously, 
not  only  by  engines  of  war,  but  by  famine,  disease,  and  massacre. 
There  were  those  who  were  killed  by  direct  military  causes ; 
those  who  died  from  indirect  causes. 

In  the  first  category  we  have :  692  Americans  slain  on  the  high 
seas;  20,620  British  subjects  slain  on  the  high  seas;  1270 
English  men,  women,  and  children,  the  victims  of  air  raids  and 
bombardment;  30,000  Belgians  butchered  or  deprived  of  life 
in  various  ways ;  40,000  French  similarly  destroyed ;  and  7500 
neutrals  slain  by  submarines  and  mines ;  a  total  of  over  100,000. 
In  the  second  category  we  have :  four  million  Armenians,  Syrians, 
Jews,  and  Greeks,  massacred  or  starved  by  the  Turks;  four 
million  deaths  beyond  the  normal  mortality  as  the  result  of  the 
influenza  and  pneumonia  induced  by  the  war;  one  million 
Serbian  dead  through  disease  or  massacre.  All  this  gives  a 
military  and  civilian  mortality,  directly  or  indirectly  the  product 
of  the  Great  War,  of  about  seventeen  millions. 

And  this  is  not  all.  Who  can  even  estimate  the  millions  of 
human  beings  whose  bones  whitened  the  roads  of  Poland, 
Ukrainia,  and  Lithuania,  and  the  other  millions  who  were  starved 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Europe  by  blockades, 
malnutrition,  and  revolutionary  disorders? 

It  should  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  the  gigantic  human 
losses  were  bound  to  be  an  even  greater  debit  to  the  following 
generation  than  to  the  present,  for  the  soldiers  killed  were  mostly 
youthful,  the  ablest,  strongest,  most  spirited,  and  most  promising 
members  of  the  race,  and  among  civilians  the  mortality  was 
highest  of  children  and  of  child-bearing  women.  Furthermore, 
while  Europe  was  most  grievously  affected  in  this  respect,  many 
regions  in  other  continents  received  serious  set-backs.  For 
example,  in  the  total  armed  strength  and  casualties  of  the 
British  Empire  were  included  millions  of  stalwart  young  men  from 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa,  and  India; 
in  the  case  of  Canada,  out  of  an  aggregate  population  of  seven 
and  a  half  million,  nearly  one  million  went  to  war,  and  of  this 
number  over  one  hundred  thousand  never  returned ;  even  India 
supplied  almost  a  million  native  troops  who  suffered  enormous 
losses  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Arabia,  and  in  East  Africa.  In  the 
French  totals  likewise  were  embraced  at  least  900,000  colonials, 
chiefly  black,  who  did  their  full  share  of  fighting  and  suffered 
proportionately. 

Throughout  the  world  there  was  a  noticeable  decline  in  the 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS 


391 


birth-rate.  In  France,  for  illustration,  official  statistics  showed 
that  civilian  population  in  the  four  years  of  the  war  decreased 
by  considerably  over  three-quarters  of  a  million,  without  in- 
cluding the  deaths  in  occupied  Northern  France  or  the  losses 
due  directly  to  the  war.  In  19 13  the  births  in  France  outnum- 
bered the  deaths  by  17,000,  but  in  the  following  year  this  excess 
disappeared  and  thereafter  the  deaths  considerably  outnumbered 
the  births  —  in  1914  by  more  than  50,000,  and  in  1915,  1916, 
191 7,  and  1 91 8  by  nearly  300,000  in  each  year.  Births,  which 
numbered  approximately  600,000  in  19 13,  dropped  to  315,000 
in  1916,  while  the  deaths  increased,  but  not  in  comparable  pro- 
portions, so  that  the  total  decrease  in  population  was  due  less 
to  any  great  increase  in  deaths  than  to  a  great  diminution  in 
births.  It  seemed  as  though  mothers  despaired  of  bringing 
children  into  a  world  the  prey  to  the  horrors  and  terror  of  war. 
And  what  was  true  of  France  was  true,  only  in  lesser  degree,  of 
other  belligerents. 

If  during  the  four  years  of  the  Great  War  blood  flowed  like 
water,  money  was  poured  out  similarly.  From  August,  1914,  to 
August,  1918,  —  thereby  excluding  the  final  stage  of  the  war 
and  the  whole  period  of  settlement  and  readjustment,  —  the 
principal  belligerent  nations  increased  their  public  debts  as 
follows  1 

Public  Indebtedness^ 

Central  Powers 


Nation 

August.  1914 

August,   1918 

Increase 

Germany 

Austria 

Hungary 

$  1,165,000,000 
2,640,000,000 
1,345,000,000 

$  30,000,000,000 

13,314,000,000 

5,704,000,000 

$28,835,000,000 

10,674,000,000 

4,359,000,000 

Total 

$  5,150,000,000 

$  49,018,000,000 

$43,868,000,000 

Allied  and  Associated  Powers 


Great  Britain  .... 
Rest  of  British  Empire  . 

Russia 

France   

United  States .... 
Italy 

$  3,458,000,000 
1,454,000,000 
5,092,000,000 
6,598,000,000 
1,208,000,000 
2,792,000,000 

$  30,000,000,000 

3,000,000,000 

25,383,000,000 

25,227,000,000 

15,008,000,000 

7,676,000,000 

$26,542,000,000 

1,546,000,000 

20,291,000,000 

18,629,000,000 

13,800,000,000 

4,884,000,000 

Total 

$20,602,000,000 

$106,294,000,000 

$85,692,000,000 

^  These  statistics  are  taken  from  an  article  by  D.  .G.  Rogers  in  The  New  York 
Times  Current  History  for  August,  19 18,  pp.  227  e/  sqq. 


392         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

Among  the  Allies,  Great  Britain  showed  the  largest  increase 
of  indebtedness :  her  total  of  twenty-six  and  a  half  billions  in- 
cluded some  eight  billions  advanced  by  her  to  the  Entente  and 
to  the  British  Dominions  and  likewise  some  four  billions  loaned 
her  by  the  United  States.  In  the  same  category  with  the  eight 
billions  advanced  by  Great  Britain,  chiefly  to  Russia  and  Italy, 
should  be  put  American  loans  totaling  eight  and  a  half  billions, 
of  which  four  billions  went  to  Great  Britain,  two  and  a  half  to 
France,  one  and  a  quarter  to  Italy,  and  the  rest  was  distributed 
in  smaller  amounts  among  Russia,  Belgium,  Greece,  Cuba, 
Serbia,  Rumania,  Liberia,  and  Czechoslovakia.  In  the  case 
of  the  Central  Empires,  their  increased  indebtedness  included 
large  financial  advances  to  Bulgaria  and  Turkey. 

Increase  of  public  indebtedness,  staggering  though  it  appeared, 
was  only  part  of  the  cost  of  the  Great  War  to  the  belligerent 
states.  Vast  sums  of  money  were  taken  in  direct  and  indirect 
taxes,  —  heavy  income  taxes,  taxes  on  war  profits,  taxes  on 
luxuries,  etc.,  etc.  No  human  being  escaped  the  necessity  of 
contributing  something  to  the  military  decision.  In  France,  for 
example,  the  civilian  population  paid  in  taxes  in  1918  thirty- 
eight  dollars  per  capita.  Hand  in  hand  with  this  universally 
burdensome  taxation  and  with  the  floating  of  gigantic  loans 
went  naturally  enormous  issues  of  paper-money  and  a  dangerous 
inflation  of  currency.  Thus,  while  the  amounts  of  gold  and  silver 
in  the  banks  of  the  warring  countries  of  Europe  changed  but  little 
in  the  aggregate  from  August,  19 14,  to  November,  19 18,  the  ratio 
of  these  amounts  to  their  liabilities  decreased  from  54.3  to  9.4. 
The  result  was  a  stupendous  increase  in  the  cost  of  living  through- 
out the  world. 

Then,  too,  the  Great  War  served  to  diminish  the  production 
of  food-staples  and  thereby  to  bring  Europe  to  the  verge  of 
starvation.  Mr.  Herbert  Hoover,  who  as  Director  General  of 
the  International  Relief  Organization  made  a  tour  through  the 
Continent  shortly  after  the  signing  of  the  armistice,  cabled  in 
January,  19 19,  to  the  United  States  a  brief  statement  of  conditions 
as  he  had  found  them  : 

^'Finland  —  The  food  is  practically  exhausted  in  the  cities. 
While  many  of  the  peasants  have  some  bread,  other  sections  are 
mixing  large  amounts  of  straw.  They  are  exhausted  of  fats,  meats, 
and  sugar,  and  need  help  to  j>revent  renewed  rise  of  Bolshevism. 

''Baltic  States  —  The  food  may  last  one  or  two  months  on  a 
much  reduced  scale.  They  sent  a  deputation  to  our  Ministry  at 
Stockholm  imploring  food. 


A  NEW   ERA  BEGINS  393 

"Serbia  —  The  town  bread  ration  is  down  to  three  ounces 
daily  in  the  north  not  accessible  from  Salonica.  In  the  south, 
where  accessible,  the  British  are  furnishing  food  to  the  civil 
population.     We  are  trying  to  get  food  in  from  the  Adriatic. 

''Jugoslavia  —  The  bread  ration  in  many  towns  is  three  or  four 
ounces.     All  classes  are  short  of  fats,  milk,  and  meats. 

''Vienna  —  Except  for  supplies  furnished  by  the  Italians  and 
Swiss,  their  present  bread  ration  of  six  ounces  per  diem  would 
disappear.  There  is  much  illness  from  the  shortage  of  fats, 
the  ration  being  one-and-one-half  ounces  per  week.  There  is 
no  coffee,  sugar,  or  eggs,  and  practically  no  meat. 

"Tyrol  —  The  people  are  being  fed  by  Swiss  charity. 

"  Poland  —  The  peasants  probably  have  enough  to  get  through. 
The  mortality  in  cities,  particularly  among  children,  is  appalling 
for  lack  of  fats,  milk,  meat,  and  bread.  The  situation  in  bread 
will  be  worse  in  two  months. 

"Rumania  —  The  bread  supply  for  the  entire  people  is  esti- 
mated to  last  another  thirty  days.  They  are  short  of  fats  and 
milk.     The  last  harvest  was  sixty  per  cent  a  failure. 

"Bulgaria  —  The  harvest  was  also  a  failure  here. .  There  are 
supplies  available  for  probably  two  or  three  months. 

"Armenia  —  is  already  starving. 

"  Czechoslovakia  —  There  is  large  suffering  on  account  of  lack 
of  fats  and  milk.  They  have  bread  for  two  or  three  months 
and  sugar  for  six  months." 

The  havoc  wrought  by  the  Great  War  can  never  be  fully 
estimated.  For  France,  one  of  the  grievous  sufferers,  a  few 
statistics  are  available,^  and  from  these  perhaps  we  may  form  a 
faint  notion  of  the  cost  of  the  war.  French  agriculture  was  hard 
hit:  the  soil  of  the  entire  country,  having  been  tilled  for  four 
years  mainly  by  women,  elderly  men,  and  young  boys,  was  greatly 
impoverished ;  the  number  of  cattle,  which  in  England  decreased 
by  four  per  cent.,  decreased  in  France  by  eighteen  per  cent. ;  the 
production  of  milk  decreased  by  sixty- three  per  cent. ;  the  number 
of  sheep  diminished  by  thirty-eight  per  cent.,  and  of  swine,  by 
forty  per  cent.  In  the  invaded  region  alone  the  damage  caused 
directly  by  the  Germans  to  the  soil,  to  live-stock,  to  crops,  tools, 
etc.,  was  estimated  conservatively  at  two  billion  dollars. 

Furthermore,  the  part  of  France  occupied  by  the  Germans 
produced  before  the  war  four-fifths  of  the  coal  and  iron  supplies 
of  the  whole  country  and  included  three-fourths  of  the  nation's 

1  In  a  report  prepared  in  December,  191 8,  by  Mr.  George  B.  Ford,  head  of  the 
Research  Department  of  the  American  Red  Cross  in  France. 


394         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

spinning  and  weaving  industries.  During  the  four  years  of 
their  occupation  the  Germans  willfully  and  methodically  de- 
stroyed all  that  was  in  their  power  to  destroy.  In  the  cotton 
industry,  the  French  lost  more  than  two  and  a  quarter  miUion 
spindles  and  twenty  thousand  looms.  Iron  works,  machine 
works  also,  were  looted,  the  useful  equipment  —  engines,  rolling 
mills,  machine  tools,  even  structural  steel  —  having  been  taken 
away  and  utilized  again  in  the  iron  works  in  Germany.  Mines 
were  flooded,  the  surface  plants  dynamited,  the  workmen's 
dwellings  destroyed.  It  was  estimated  that  altogether  four  bil- 
lion dollars'  worth  of  machinery  would  be  needed  to  replace  that 
destroyed  or  carried  away. 

Another  two  billion  dollars  would  be  required  to  replace  the 
250,000  destroyed  buildings  in  France  and  to  repair  the  500,000 
damaged  buildings.  Yet  another  two  billions  would  have  to 
be  spent  in  repairing  and  replacing  the  used  or  destroyed  public 
works  in  northern  France :  the  Northern  Railway  alone  had 
lost  1 73 1  bridges  and  338  stations.  According  to  figures  sub- 
mitted by  the  Budget  Committee  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
in  December,  19 18,  the  total  damage  in  the  north  of  France, 
including  public  works,  buildings,  furniture,  industry,  agri- 
culture, and  forestry,  was  estimated  at  sixty-four  billion  francs, 
or  close  to  thirteen  billion  dollars. 

Little  Belgium  had  suffered  at  least  two  billion  dollars'  worth 
of  outright  destruction,  and  in  addition  there  were  two  billions  in 
thefts  and  taxes  imposed  by  Germany.  Of  this  amount,  one 
and  one-half  billions  represented  the  loss  of  machinery,  tools, 
and  stock.  And  if  to  the  special  losses  of  France  and  Belgium 
were  added  those  of  Poland,  Russia,  Rumania,  Serbia,  and 
Italy,  a  financial  amount  could  be  computed  that  would  surpass 
human  powers  of  comprehension.  No  financial  amount  could 
compensate  the  world  for  the  destruction  of  such  monuments  as 
the  cathedral  of  Rheims  or  the  library  of  Louvain. 

Finally,  in  sketching  the  cost  of  the  Great  War,  we  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  enormous  destruction  of  the  world's  shipping. 
The  total  losses  of  the  world's  merchant  tonnage  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  to  the  end  of  October,  1918,  through  belligerent 
action  and  marine  risk,  was  15,053,786  gross  tons,  of  which 
9,031,828  were  British.  In  December,  1918,  Sir  Eric  Geddes, 
First  Lord  of  the  British  Admiralty,  stated  that  5622  British 
merchant  ships  had  been  sunk  during  the  war,  of  which  2475  had 
been  sunk  with  their  crews  still  on  board  and  3147  had  been  sunk 
and  their  crews  set  adrift.     Fishing  vessels  to  the  number  of 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  395 

670  had  been  destroyed,  and  more  than  15,000  men  in  the  British 
merchant  marine  had  lost  their  Hves  through  enemy  action. 
Emergency  building  had  contributed  much  to  the  replacement 
of  lost  tonnage,  but  it  had  been  accomphshed  at  heavy  expense. 
The  United  States  bore  its  share  of  the  losses.  According  to 
official  figures  published  by  the  Bureau  of  Navigation,  a  total 
of  145  American  merchant  vessels,  of  354,449  gross  tons,  with 
775  lives,  was  lost  through  enemy  acts  from  the  beginning  of  the 
war  to  the  cessation  of  hostilities  on  November  11.  Nineteen 
of  the  145  vessels  and  sixty-seven  of  the  775  lives  were  lost  through 
German  torpedoes,  mines,  and  gunfire  prior  to  the  entrance  of 
the  United  States  into  the  Great  War. 

LANDMARKS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA 

The  Great  War  could  not  do  otherwise  than  close  one  era  in 
human  history  and  inaugurate  another.  Its  expenditure  of 
man-power  and  of  natural  resources  was  too  prodigious  to  allow 
the  world  to  be  the  same  in  1920  as  it  had  been  in  19 14.  To  be 
sure,  much  remained  unchanged,  for  the  human  animal  is  too 
instinctively  conservative,  too  naturally  a  victim  of  habit,  to 
permit  even  a  cataclysm  like  the  Great  War  to  wrench  him  quite 
loose  from  the  institutions  and  customs  of  the  past.  Besides, 
many  of  the  changes  which  attracted  most  attention  during  the 
five  years'  conflict  were  destined  possibly  to  be  only  temporary, 
and  others  would  seem  perhaps  to  future  generations  humorously 
insignificant. 

Yet  after  making  full  allowance  for  the  numerous  and  im- 
portant respects  in  which  the  world  was  not  changed  by  the 
Great  War,  or  was  altered  only  temporarily,  sufficiently  striking 
novelties  had  already  appeared  in  society  and  in  government  in 
1920,  as  a  direct  or  indirect  outcome  of  the  struggle,  to  justify 
us  in  describing  them  briefly  as  landmarks  of  a  new  era.  In 
these  landmarks  is  found  the  significance  of  the  Great  War. 

What  was  accomplished  by  five  years'  unprecedented  out- 
pouring of  blood  and  treasure  ?  The  most  obvious  achievement, 
certainly  the  most  universally  impressive  to  contemporaries, 
was  the  staggering  defeat  of  Germany  and  her  associates.  Ger- 
many, a  militaristic  Power  par  excellence,  after  frightening  Europe 
for  two  generations  by  swashbuckling  words  and  rattlings  of 
heavy  armor,  had  finally  essayed  by  dint  of  methods  most  truly 
anarchic  and  by  aid  of  confederates  most  terribly  unscrupulous 
to  impose  her  will  and  her  KuUur  upon  the  world;    she  had 


396         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

ultimately  taken  the  sword  and  sought  to  substitute  for  the 
system  of  free  sovereign  states  and  for  the  Balance  of  Power  a 
world-order  established  and  maintained  on  the  basis  of  a  Pax 
Romana  Germanica.  She  had  failed.  The  slogan  of  her  Bern- 
hardi  —  Weltmacht  oder  Niedergang  —  had  been  answered  with 
Niedergang.  Her  dream  of  a  Teutonized  Mittel-Europa  was 
dispelled.  Turkey  and  Austria-Hungary  were  disrupted;  Bul- 
garia and  Germany  herself  were  overwhelmed  and  crushed.  The 
Great  War,  in  this  respect,  confirmed  an  historical  lesson  of 
modern  times,  that  no  one  state  could  or  would  be  suffered  to 
revive  a  Roman  Empire ;  and  William  II  of  Germany  proved 
to  be  but  a  shadow  following  the  fated  footsteps  of  Emperor 
Charles  V,  of  Philip  II  of  Spain,  of  Louis  XIV  of  France,  and  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte.  And  with  the  downfall  of  the  German 
Empire  in  the  twentieth  century,  the  free  nations  of  the  world 
breathed  more  easily. 

Other  achievements,  incidental  to  this  major  one,  deserve 
more  extended  consideration,  for  they,  in  the  main,  are  positive 
and  constructive,  while  the  defeat  of  Germany  in  itself  was 
merely  destructive  and  negative.  If  we  contrast  the  world  in 
191 9  with  the  world  in  19 14,  we  discover  the  following  facts  and 
tendencies,  significant  outgrowths  of  the  Great  War  and  prophetic 
landmarks  of  a  new  era : 

I.  Nationalism.  The  Great  War  marked  the  all  but  universal 
triumph  of  the  principle  of  nationalism,  the  doctrine  that  people 
who  speak  the  same  language  and  have  the  same  historic  tra- 
ditions shall  live  together  under  a  common  polity  of  their  own 
making.  This  principle,  this  doctrine,  made  rapid  headway 
during  the  five  years'  strife;  the  Germans  utilized  it  against 
Russia,  and  the  Allies  invoked  it  against  the  Central  Empires. 
Generally  the  prophets  and  seers  of  the  new  era,  unlike  those  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  did  not  decry  nationalism  in  behalf 
of  an  Utopian  ''cosmopolitanism";  they  extolled  nationalism 
alike  as  desirable  in  itself  and  as  a  starting-point  on  the 
promised  road  to  ''internationalism."  Nor  did  the  peace- 
makers of  1919-1920  repeat  the  mistake  of  their  predecessors 
at  Vienna  a  century  earlier  and  ignore  the  unmistakable  pop- 
ular longings  for  national  self-determination ;  on  the  other  hand, 
they  consecrated  nationalism  and  wrote  it  into  the  public  law 
of  Europe. 

Four  great  non-nationalistic  states  were  dismembered  — 
Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  Russia,  and  Germany,  —  and  one 
small    state  —  Montenegro  —  disappeared.      From    the    ruins 


A  NEW  ERA   BEGINS  397 

emerged  nine  newly  independent  national  states  —  Poland, 
Czechoslovakia,  Hedjaz,  Armenia,  Finland,  Ukrainia,  Lithuania, 
Latvia,  and  Esthonia,  —  while,  through  annexations  and  con- 
solidations, the  national  unification  was  virtually  completed  of 
Italy,  of  Jugoslavia  (Serbia) ,  of  Rumania,  and  of  Greece ;  and 
the  return  of  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France  and  of  the  Danish- 
speaking  portion  of  Schleswig  to  Denmark  redressed  long- 
standing national  grievances.  Germany,  deprived  of  Danes, 
French,  and  Poles,  became  for  the  first  time  in  history  genuinely 
a  national  state.  Similarly,  Russia  became  a  homogeneous  state 
of  Great  Russians ;  Hungary,  a  national  state  of  Magyars ;  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  a  small  national  state  of  Mohammedan  Turks ; 
and  Austria,  a  minor  but  homogeneous  Teuton  colony  on  the 
Danube.  Had  German  Austria  been  permitted  to  unite  formally 
with  Germany,  all  central  Europe,  except  Switzerland,  would 
have  been  completely  reorganized  on  a  national  basis. 

In  recognizing  the  new  nationalistic  order  of  things,  the 
diplomatists  had  the  farsightedness  to  try  to  correct  its  intolerant 
tendencies  by  eliciting  pledges  from  the  new  national  states  to 
preserve  and  respect  religious,  cultural,  and  economic  rights 
of  dissentient  nationalities  within  their  territories.  In  this  war 
the  Jews  especially  were,  in  Central  Europe,  placed  more  or  less 
under  international  protection.  What  with  the  encouragement 
of  Zionism  in  Palestine  and  with  the  international  guarantee 
of  their  status  in  Europe,  the  Jews  were  signal  gainers  by  the 
Great  W^ar. 

In  certain  quarters  of  the  world,  particularly  in  Allied  terri- 
tories, national  self-determination  was  temporarily  checked  or 
suppressed.  Such  was  the  situation  in  Ireland,  where,  though 
conditions  were  not  essentially  different  from  those  in  Czecho- 
slovakia, the  British  Government  thwarted  the  undoubted  desire 
of  the  majority  of  the  people  to  found  a  national  republic  and 
successfully  combated  their  every  effort  to  obtain  a  hearing  at 
the  Peace  Congress.  In  Egypt,  too,  the  British  suppressed  a 
national  insurrection  by  force  of  arms  in  the  spring  of  191 9. 
And  in  Albania  the  Italians  set  to  work  deliberately  to  stifle  the 
spirit  of  independent  nationalism.  Yet  in  all  'these  regions 
nationalistic  agitation  werit  forward ;  it  troubled  to  an  unusual 
degree  the  British  in  India  and  in  Persia,  the  Japanese  in  Korea, 
and  to  some  extent  the  Americans  in  the  Philippines. 

11.  Change  in  Relative  Importance  of  States.  As  an  outcome 
of  the  Great  War  there  was,  on  the  one  hand,  a  considerable  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  small  independent  states  in  the  world. 


398         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

and,  on  the  other,  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  Great  Powers.  Of 
the  eight  recognized  Great  Powers  in  19 14,  Austria-Hungary  had 
ceased  to  exist  by  1919,  and  Germany  and  Russia,  at  least  tem- 
porarily, had  been  outclassed.  Russia  had  become  a  pariah 
among  the  nations,  thanks  to  her  embracing  of  extreme  sociaHsm ; 
and  Germany  had  lost  her  navy,  her  colonies,  and  her  merchant 
marine  and  had  declined  from  a  position  as  the  foremost  military 
state  in  the  world  to  virtual  disarmament  and  impotence. 

In  theory  at  any  rate  the  new  state-system  was  unlike  the  old. 
The  old,  as  was  pointed  out  in  the  opening  pages  of  this  book, 
was  essentially  anarchic ;  it  rested  on  the  fancied  self-sufficiency 
of  each  of  its  members,  on  series  of  alliances  and  ententes  formed 
for  selfish  ends,  and  on  balances  of  power  and  threats  of  war. 
The  new  system  had  gradually  evolved  from  the  exigencies  of 
the  Great  War  and  had  been  enshrined  in  the  Covenant  of  Ver- 
sailles; it  was  based  on  the  concept  of  a  League  of  Nations  in 
which  no  state  should  presume  to  set  its  own  interests  above 
those  of  mankind  at  large,  and  on  a  contract  according  to  which 
certain  activities  were  recognized  as  of  international  concern 
rather  than  as  within  the  restricted  purview  of  individual  nations. 
If  the  League  of  Nations  flourished,  if  the  new  order  became  a 
reality, —  and  only  the  lapse  of  many  years  could  tell,  —  then  the 
old  ascription  of  absolute  and  unrestricted  sovereignty  to  each  and 
every  independent  state  would  in  time  be  revised,  and  out  of  the 
anarchic  welter  and  chaos  of  modern  times  would  succeed  an 
organized  Inter-Nation  capable  of  preserving  the  peace  of  the 
world  and  of  promoting  the  orderly  development  of  human  life. 
To  the  realization  of  such  a  dream  the  Great  War  pointed 
posterity. 

Without  some  sort  of  a  League  of  Nations,  the  growth  of  na- 
tionaHsm  during  the  war  and  its  recognition  by  the  Peace  Con- 
gress might  readily  become  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing. 
Merely  to  add  ten  or  a  dozen  new  national  states  to  forty  or 
fifty  already  existing,  merely  to  *'Balkanize"  Central  Europe, 
would  render  confusion  worse  confounded,  if  the  new  ones  like 
the  old  should  not  receive  a  striking  object-lesson,  which  un- 
fortunately at  the  outset  they  seemed  all  too  prone  to  ignore, 
in  the  necessity  of  restraint  and  humility  and  cooperation,  in 
uprooting  the  weeds  of  nationalism  and  cultivating  only  its 
best  fruits. 

The  League  of  Nations,  as  actually  estabHshed  in  1920,  was 
none  too  strong.  Excluded  from  its  membership  were  not  only 
Germany,  Austria,  Hungary,  Bulgaria,  and  Turkey,  but  also 


A  NEW  ERA   BEGINS  399 

Russia  and  most  of  the  states  newly  detached  from  the  old  Russian 
Empire;  and  the  United  States  seemed  unwilling  to  adhere  to 
it  without  *' reservations '*  which  further  weakened  it.  Further- 
more, between  the  multitude  of  small  states  included  in  the 
League  and  the  four  Great  Powers  which  at  first  practically 
controlled  it,  —  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan,  — 
there  was  a  wide  divergence  of  power  and  prestige.  There  were 
adverse  critics  a-plenty  who  insisted  that  the  Covenant  was 
primarily  a  cloak  for  the  further  aggrandizement  of  the  four. 
Great  Powers  at  the  expense  of  the  rest. 

III.  Imperialism.  Superficially,  at  any  rate,  the  Great  War 
gave  zest  and  zeal  to  the  game  of  capitalistic  imperiahsm.  As 
nationalism  was  the  goal  of  the  smaller  states,  so  imperiaHstic 
gains  seemed  to  be  the  stakes  of  most  of  the  Great  Powers.  Great 
Britain  emerged  from  the  war  as  the  foremost  maritime  and  co- 
lonial and  industrial  Power  in  the  world ;  she  had  humbled  Ger- 
many, her  latest  rival,  as  completely  as  in  earlier  eras  she  had 
overcome  the  Spaniards,  the  Dutch,  and  the  French ;  to  her  al- 
ready far-flung  empire  were  now  added,  in  one  form  or  another, 
some  of  the  wealthiest  provinces  of  the  old  Ottoman  Empire,  — 
Mesopotamia  and  Palestine,^  —  and  the  bulk  of  the  German 
overseas  possessions,  —  East  Africa,  Southwest  Africa,  parts  of 
Kamerun  and  Togoland,  and  the  Pacific  islands  south  of  the 
equator.  She  could  now  complete  the  construction  of  the  Cape- 
to-Cairo  railway  exclusively  on  British  soil,  and  by  bringing  Persia^ 
within  her  orbit  of  influence  she  could  dominate  economically  and 
pohtically  the  vast  expanse  of  land  and  water  from  Cairo  and 
Damascus  to  Rangoon  and  Singapore.  The  richest  regions  of  Asia 
and  of  Africa  were  hers.  To  be  sure,  these  gains  were  shared  by 
Great  Britain  with  South  Africa,  AustraHa,  and  New  Zealand, 
for  the  British  Empire,  it  should  be  remembered,  was  less  a 
unitary  state  than  an  alliance  of  mother-country  and  self-govern- 
ing dominions;  nevertheless,  they  redounded  to  Anglo-Saxon 
prestige  throughout  the  world  and  most  substantially  to  the 
economic  advantage  of  British  capitahsts  within  the  United 
Kingdom. 

France  emerged  from  the  Great  War  as  the  foremost  military 
state  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  She  was  exalted  as  Germany 
was  abased.     Against  the  possibiUty  of  the  mihtary  resurrection 

1  Great  Britain  also  now  exercised  a  veiled  protectorate  over  Hedjaz  and  a 
greatly  strengthened  protectorate  over  Egypt. 

2  A  treaty  concluded  in  19 19  between  Persia  and  Great  Britain  virtually  recog- 
nized the  former  as  constituting  a  "sphere  of  influence"  of  the  latter. 


400         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  Germany  she  was  now  insured  by  possession  of  Strassburg  and 
Metz,  by  a  fifteen-year  occupation  of  Mainz,  and,  she  hoped,  by 
a  special  defensive  alliance  with  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  Moreover,  she  enjoyed  a  paramount  influence  alike  in 
the  military  and  in  the  economic  poHcies  of  Poland,  Czecho- 
slovakia, Rumania,  Jugoslavia,  and  Greece ;  most  of  the  smaller 
states  of  Europe  were  her  satellites.  And  outside  of  Europe, 
France  maintained  her  position  as  a  colonial  and  imperialistic 
Power  second  in  importance  only  to  Great  Britain.  To  the 
French  Empire  were  added  "mandates"  for  Syria,  Cilicia,  and 
portions  of  Kamerun  and  Togoland,  and  a  greatly  strengthened 
protectorate  of  Morocco. 

Italy  not  only  completed  her  national  unification  but  assumed 
a  leading  imperialistic  role  in  the  Adriatic  and  in  the  eastern 
Mediterranean.  She  obtained  a  hold  on  Albania  and  AdaHa 
and  counted  upon  extensions  of  her  territories  and  privileges  in 
Tripoli,  Cyrenaica,  and  Somaliland. 

Japan  asserted  and  maintained  a  kind  of  Monroe  Doctrine  for 
China,  that  no  European  Power  might  increase  its  holdings  in  the 
Far  East  but  that  she  herself  might  freely  act  as  sponsor  and 
guardian  for  the  entire  Chinese  Empire.  Specifically,  she  annexed 
the  former  German  Pacific  islands  north  of  the  equator  and  ac- 
quired the  German  rights  and  concessions  in  the  Chinese  province 
of  Shantung.  Less  directly,  she  obtained  at  least  a  temporary 
hold  on  eastern  Siberia. 

The  United  States  gained  nothing  directly.  Indirectly,  how- 
ever, her  participation  in  the  Great  War  and  her  probable 
underwriting  of  the  various  treaties  which  concluded  it  marked 
her  coming-of-age  as  a  Great  Power  and  as  a  World  Power.  On 
the  one  hand,  she  gained  from  Europe  a  formal  recognition  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine ;  on  the  other  hand,  she  set  a  precedent  for 
subsequent  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Asia  not  only  but  of 
Europe  likewise.  She  departed  from  her  traditional  poHcy  of 
avoiding  "entangling  alHances"  with  Old- World  Powers;  and 
if  she  should  ratify  either  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions or  the  defensive  treaty  of  alliance  with  France,  or  both,  she 
would  obviously  have  entered  into  novel  international  engage- 
ments and  assumed  new  international  obligations  of  far-reaching 
import. 

In  fine,  while  Germany  and  Russia  were  turned  from  imperial- 
istic paths  by  the  Great  War,  four  of  the  five  victorious  Great 
Powers,  and  possibly  the  fifth,  paved  wide  and  deep  the  high- 
ways of  their  own  imperiaHsm.     One  concession  was  made,  how- 


1  iBelKlan 

Principal  railways  ehowu  thus 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  401 

ever,  to  critics  of  imperialism,  for  most  of  the  former  German 
colonies  were  ceded  to  the  several  Allies  not  in  full  sovereignty 
but  as  '■'mandataries"  of  the  League  of  Nations.  In  other 
words,  the  five  Great  Powers  recognized  the  international, 
rather  than  the  strictly  national,  character  of  capitalistic  im- 
perialism. The  very  phrasing  of  one  of  the  sections  of  the 
Covenant  was  eloquent  of  the  new  point  of  view  and  of  prom- 
ise for  the  future :  ''To  those  colonies  and  territories  which  as  a 
consequence  of  the  late  war  have  ceased  to  be  under  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  state  which  formerly  governed  them  and  which  are 
inhabited  by  people  not  yet  able  to  stand  by  themselves  under 
the  strenuous  conditions  of  the  modern  world,  there  should  be 
applied  the  principle  that  the  well-being  and  development  of  such 
peoples  form  a  sacred  trust  of  civilization  and  that  securities  for 
the  performance  of  this  trust  should  be  embodied  in  this  Covenant. 
The  best  method  of  giving  practical  effect  to  this  principle  is  that 
the  tutelage  of  such  peoples  should  be  intrusted  to  advanced  na- 
tions who  by  reason  of  their  resources,  their  experience  or  their 
geographical  position  can  best  undertake  this  responsibility,  and 
who  are  willing  to  accept  it,  and  that  this  tutelage  should  be  ex- 
ercised by  them  as  mandataries  on  behalf  of  the  League. 

''The  character  of  the  mandate  must  differ  according  to  the 
stage  of  the  development  of  the  people,  the  geographical  situation 
of  the  territory,  its  economic  conditions  and  other  similar  cir- 
cumstances. Certain  communities  formerly  belonging  to  the 
Turkish  Empire  have  reached  a  stage  of  development  where  their 
existence  as  independent  nations  can  be  provisionally  recognized 
subject  to  the  rendering  of  administrative  advice  and  assistance 
by  a  mandatary  until  such  time  as  they  are  able  to  stand  alone ; 
the  wishes  of  these  communities  must  be  a  principal  condition  in 
the  selection  of  the  mandatary.  Other  peoples,  especially  those 
of  Central  Africa,  are  at  such  a  stage  that  the  mandatary  must 
be  responsible  for  the  administration  of  the  territory  under  con- 
ditions which  will  guarantee  freedom  of  conscience  and  religion, 
subject  only  to  the  maintenance  of  public  order  and  morals,  the 
prohibition  of  abuses  such  as  the  slave  trade,  the  arms  traffic  and 
the  liquor  trafiic,  and  the  prevention  of  the  estabHshment  of 
fortifications  or  military  and  naval  bases  and  of  military  train- 
ing of  the  natives  for  other  than  police  purposes  and  the  defense 
of  territory,  and  will  also  secure  equal  opportunities  for  the  trade 
and  commerce  of  other  members  of  the  League.  There  are  terri- 
tories, such  as  Southwest  Africa  and  certain  of  the  South  Pacific 
islands,  which,  owing  to  the  sparseness  of  their  population  or  their 

2D 


402         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

small  size,  or  their  remoteness  from  the  centers  of  civilization, 
or  their  geographical  contiguity  to  the  territory  of  the  mandatary, 
and  other  circumstances,  can  be  best  administered  under  the  laws 
of  the  mandatary  as  integral  portions  of  its  territory,  subject  to 
the  safeguards  above  mentioned  in  the  interests  of  the  indigenous 
population. 

*'In  every  case  of  mandate  the  mandatary  shall  render  to  the 
Council  [of  the  League  of  Nations]  an  annual  report  in  reference 
to  the  territory  committed  to  its  charge.  The  degree  of  author- 
ity, control,  or  administration  to  be  exercised  by  the  mandatary 
shall,  if  not  previously  agreed  UDon  by  members  of  the  League, 
be  explicitly  defined  in  each  case  by  the  Council.  A  permanent 
commission  shall  be  constituted  to  receive  and  examine  the  annual 
reports  of  the  mandataries  and  to  advise  the  Council  on  all  matters 
relating  to  the  observance  of  the  mandates." 

IV.  Republicanism .  The  Great  War  was  as  advantageous  to 
repubhcanism  throughout  the  world  as  it  was  disastrous  to  mon- 
archy. In  1 9 14,  six  of  the  eight  Great  Powers  were  monarchical ; 
in  191 9,  only  three  remained  monarchical  and  these  three  — 
Great  Britain,  Italy,  Japan,  —  had  reconsecrated  their  poHtical 
institutions  by  miHtary  victory.  The  three  most  famous  dynas- 
ties —  the  Habsburgs,  the  Romanovs,  and  the  Hohenzollerns  — 
had  been  worsted  and  had  ceased  to  reign.  From  German  lands 
had  been  chased  out  all  those  lesser  historic  sovereign  families  — 
the  Wittelsbachs,  the  Wettins,  the  Guelfs,  etc}  Republics  had 
replaced  monarchies  in  Russia,  in  Germany,  and  in  Austria; 
and  in  the  states  newly  created  in  Central  Europe  republican 
forms  of  government  prevailed  —  in  Poland,  Czechoslovakia, 
Ukrainia,  Lithuania,  Latvia,  Esthonia,  and  Finland.  Not  only 
were  the  American  continents  almost  wholly  repubhcan,  but 
Europe  was  now  predominantly  so,  and  even  in  Asia  the  vast 
Chinese  Empire  was  nominally  repubhcan.  Divine-right  mon- 
archy was  at  last  extinct,  except  possibly  in  Japan;  even  con- 
stitutional, Hberal  monarchy  was  on  the  decHne. 

V.  Political  Democracy.  Within  most  of  the  belligerent  coun- 
tries radical  poHtical  reforms  of  a  democratic  nature  were  fos- 
tered and  hastened  by  the  war.  Throughout  Central  Europe, 
in  Germany,  in  Austria,  and  in  Hungary,  as  well  as  in  the  newly 

1  Individual  kings  were  forced  out  of  Greece  and  Bulgaria,  but  in  both  these 
countries  monarchy  survived.  In  the  case  of  Montenegro,  King  Nicholas  was  de- 
posed in  favor  of  King  Peter  of  Serbia.  In  191 8  there  were  ineffectual  anti-royalist 
demonstrations  in  the  Netherlands,  in  Sweden,  and  in  Spain.  A  royalist  uprising 
in  Portugal  against  the  republican  government  was  easily  put  down.  Only  in 
Hungary  was  there,  in  1920,  a  popular  drift  from  republicanism  back  to  monarchy. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  403 

erected  states  of  Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and  Finland,  a  host  of 
new  constitutions  were  written  providing  pretty  uniformly  for 
representative  government,  ministerial  responsibihty,  and  guar- 
antees of  personal  liberties.  In  Germany  and  in  Austria  full 
woman  suffrage  on  the  same  basis  as  that  of  men  was  accorded 
by  the  new  constitutions;  it  was  an  appropriate  recognition  of 
the  significant  role  which  women  had  played  in  the  Great  War 
as  well  as  a  logical  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  political  democ- 
racy. In  Great  Britain,  too,  the  franchise  was  granted  to  most 
women,  while  in  the  United  States  a  constitutional  amendment 
providing  for  general  woman  suffrage  was  approved  by  the  Con- 
gress and  submitted  to  the  federated  States  for  ratification.  In 
France,  a  bill  granting  the  franchise  to  women  passed  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  and  barely  missed  passage  through  the  Senate. 
In  Italy,  a  woman-suffrage  bill  was  pending  in  1920. 

In  Great  Britain  the  electoral  reforms  of  1832,  1867,  and  1884- 
1885  were  consolidated  and  supplemented  by  an  important  Elec- 
toral Reform  Bill  enacted  in  19 18.  AnomaHes  of  former  acts 
were  effaced  and  much-needed  uniformity  was  secured.  Here- 
after, a  general  election  was  to  be  held  everywhere  on  the  same 
day ;  no  person  could  vote  in  more  than  two  constituencies ;  the 
franchise  was  extended  to  all  men  who  were  twenty-one  years  of 
age  and  had  maintained  a,  residence  or  place  of  business  for  six 
months,  to  all  women  who  were  thirty  years  of  age  and  had  owned 
or  tenanted  premises  for  six  months  or  were  married  to  men  who 
owned  or  tenanted  premises,  and  to  veterans  of  the  war  who  were 
nineteen  years  of  age ;  the  principle  of  proportional  representa- 
tion was  to  be  applied  to  university  constituencies  returning  two 
or  more  members ;  and  a  redistribution  of  seats  was  effected, 
whereby  there  would  be  one  member  for  every  70,000  of  the 
population  in  Great  Britain,  and  one  for  every  43,000  in  Ireland, 
so  that  the  total  membership  of  the  House  of  Commons  would 
be  increased  from  670  to  707.^ 

In  France,  a  long-debated  Electoral  Reform  Bill,  which  had 
been  repeatedly  passed  by  the  Chamber  and  as  repeatedly  blocked 
by  the  Senate,  was  finally  enacted  in  1919.  Under  its  terms,  the 
scrutin  de  liste  was  substituted  for  the  scrutin  d'arrondissement, 

^  The  first  general  elections,  under  this  Reform  Act,  were  held  in  December, 
1918,  and  gave  a  decisive  verdict  in  favor  of  the  Lloyd  George  Coalition  Govern- 
ment. The  distribution  of  seats  in  the  new  House  of  Commons  was  as  follows : 
Coalitionists,  471  (334  Unionists,  127  Liberals,  10  Laborites) ;  Opposition,  236 
(46  Unionists,  37  Asquith  Liberals,  65  Laborites,  i  Socialist,  7  Irish  Nationalists, 
73  Sinn  Feiners,  7  Independents).  In  Great  Britain  the  position  of  the  Conserva- 
tive Unionists  was  greatly  strengthened,  and  in  Ireland  that  of  the  Sinn  Fein. 


404         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

and  the  principle  of  proportional  representation  was  recognized 
and  adopted.  In  Belgium  likewise  the  year  191 9  witnessed  an 
electoral  reform,  by  which  the  system  of  plural  voting  was  abol- 
ished and  that  of  one-man-one-vote  was  introduced.  In  Ru- 
mania,^ too,  universal  suffrage  was  substituted  for  the  undemo- 
cratic device  of  the  three-class  system  which  in  earlier  years  had 
been  borrowed  from  Prussia. 

VI.  Temporary  Impatience  with  Popular  Government.  Though 
the  outcome  of  the  Great  War  was  distinctly  favorable  to  the 
cause  of  repubhcanism  and  of  poHtical  democracy,  temporarily 
at  least  there  was  not  unnatural  impatience  with  popular  govern- 
ment. In  the  midst  of  the  war,  when  the  fortunes  of  the  Central 
Powers  reached  full-tide  and  those  of  the  Allies  appeared  to  ebb, 
many  persons  felt  and  expressed  doubt  of  democracy  and  liberty ; 
they  pointed  to  Teutonic  success  as  proof  positive  of  the  inherent 
superiority,  at  any  rate  in  times  of  stress  and  strife,  of  autocracy 
over  democracy,  of  obedience  over  freedom;  they  complained 
bitterly  of  the  inefficiency  of  popular  government  and  of  the  li- 
cense of  popular  criticism ;  and  they  sought  to  destroy  Autoc- 
racy by  resorting  to  methods  quite  autocratic.  In  part  the 
Allied  Governments  responded  to  these  feeHngs  and  complaints ; 
everywhere  the  machinery  of  political  democracy  was  supple- 
mented, and  in  some  instances  well-nigh  supplanted,  by  a  bureau- 
cracy of  *' experts,"  dependent  upon  a  dictatorial  ''War 
Cabinet"  ;  parhaments  became  chiefly '' rubber-stamps "  for  regis- 
tering and  recording  the  decisions  of  the  Government ;  and  in- 
dividual liberties  were  substantially  abridged.  In  all  belligerent 
countries  a  censorship,  open  or  veiled,  was  rigorously  maintained ; 
and  constitutional  guarantees  of  the  freedom  of  association,  meet- 
ing, and  pubHcation,  were  practically  set  aside,  either  by  formal 
statutory  restriction,  or,  more  often,  by  direct  action  on  the  part 
of  outraged  patriots.  In  the  passions  and  hysteria  of  the  Great 
War,  majorities  proved  themselves  utterly  intolerant  of  minor- 
ities, and  even  majorities  were  impatient  of  the  slow  and  ponder- 
ous workings  of  the  usual  engines  of  orderly  political  democracy. 

How  much  of  this  was  merely  episodical  to  the  war,  time  alone 
will  tell.  Undoubtedly  most  of  it  arose  out  of  mihtary  exigen- 
cies and  will  disappear  with  them.  But  it  may  not  be  idle  to 
conjecture  that  in  the  age-long  struggle  between  the  principle  of 

^  The  disasters  which  overtook  Rumania  from  191 6  to  1918  led  not  only  to 
political  reform  but  also  to  a  noteworthy  social  transformation,  for  the  large  landed 
estates  were  broken  up  and  distributed,  with  compensation  to  their  former  owners, 
among  the  numerous  and  needy  peasantry. 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  405 

governmental  authority  and  that  of  personal  liberty,  the  Great 
War  aided  the  former  to  the  detriment  of  the  latter.^  Nor  might 
it  be  wholly  beside  the  point  to  hazard  the  guess  that  the  political 
democracy  of  the  future  would  undergo  a  noteworthy  transforma- 
tion in  letter  if  not  in  spirit :  democracy  might  be  rendered  more 
real  and  more  effective  if  it  were  based  on  social  groupings  rather 
than  on  territorial  divisions,  if  "experts"  were  accorded  a  more 
honorable  and  appropriate  place  within  it,  and  if  its  machinery 
were  simplified  and  applied  less  reservedly  to  social  ends,  to  the 
well-being  of  a  whole  community.  To  reform  political  democracy 
and  to  extend  its  operation  to  industry  and  commerce  was  a  bur- 
den imposed  upon  progressive  nations  by  the  Great  War. 

VII.  Hahit  of  Resorting  to  Force.  In  the  Great  War,  Germany 
had  employed  armed  force  in  order  to  impose  her  peculiar  Kultur 
upon  the  world,  and  the  Allies  had  developed  and  utilized  a  su- 
perior armed  force  in  order  to  curb  Teutonic  ambitions  and  to 
preserve  their  own  freedom  and  independence.  For  four  years 
and  more  the  fate  of  the  bulk  of  mankind  had  hung,  not  upon  or- 
derly, peaceful  evolution,  but  upon  violence  and  force,  —  ''force 
to  the  utmost,  force  without  stint  or  limit."  And  men  who  had 
been  taught  by  the  most  practical  examples  and  experiences  that 
force  was  the  righteous  arbiter  in  the  gravest  of  all  international 
questions  were  dangerously  but  naturally  inclined  to  resort  to  a 
forceful  and  illegal  settlement  of  domestic  differences.  ''Direct 
action"  was  too  frequently  invoked  during  the  Great  War,  and 
at  its  close,  both  by  ultra-conservatives  and  by  ultra-radicals. 

In  economic  matters  as  well  as  in  purely  pohtical  questions 
revolutionary  aims  and  revolutionary  methods  were  increasingly 
championed.  On  one  side,  reactionary  statesmen  and  reaction- 
ary capitalists  counseled  the  governments  to  refuse  popular  de- 
mands for  political  and  economic  reforms  and  to  employ  soldiers, 
if  necessary,  to  back  up  their  refusal.  On  the  other  hand,  groups 
of  fanatical  agitators  preached  class-warfare  and  the  violent  over- 
turn of  "bourgeois"  government  and  society.  The  career  of  the 
Bolsheviki  in  Russia  was  made  possible  only  by  a  condition  and 
a  state  of  mind  engendered  by  the  Great  War.  And  only  the 
habitual  resort  to  force  explained  fully  the  policy  which  the  Allies 
pursued  in  1919  of  attempting  to  overthrow  the  Bolsheviki  by 
foreign  intervention. 

With  the  passing  of  war-psychology,  the  human  mind  will 
probably  return  gradually  to  a  quieter  and  more  normal  state. 

^  A  case  in  point  is  the  enactment  of  permanent  prohibition  of  alcohoUc  bev- 
erages throughout  the  United  States  (19 18). 


4o6         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

But  in  the  meantime,  for  at  least  a  generation,  the  world  will 
be  laboring  to  throw  off  the  inherited  incubus  of  terrorism  and 
violence.  In  all  countries,  particularly  in  those  which  have  suf- 
fered most  in  the  Great  War,  a  high  degree  of  character,  intelli- 
gence, and  self-restraint  will  be  required  of  the  whole  citizenry 
if,  as  a  final  outcome  of  the  Great  War,  liberty  is  not  to  de- 
generate into  license  and  civilization  into  barbarism. 

VIII.  Social  Tendencies.  The  Great  War  strengthened  cer- 
tain tendencies  which  had  been  developing  in  the  social  order  of 
the  preceding  era  and  inaugurated  new  ones  : 

(a)  There  was  a  marked  increase  of  state  socialism  and  of  state 
intervention  in  labor  disputes.  Systems  of  transportation  and 
communication  were  pretty  generally  taken  over  and  managed 
by  the  governments ;  hours  of  labor  were  regulated,  as  were  also 
in  many  instances  wages  and  profits ;  and  in  some  cases  whole 
war-industries  were  maintained  and  operated  by  public  author- 
ities. In  Great  Britain,  the  Labor  Party  demanded  (January, 
19 18)  the  permanent  nationalization  of  land,  railways,  and  mines. 

{h)  There  was  an  increased  influence,  on  the  one  hand,  of  bank- 
ers and  great  financiers,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  labor  organ- 
izations. "  Profiteering  "  on  the  part  of  producers  of  war  materiel 
and  of  dealers  in  foodstuffs  was  accompanied  by  unusual  pros- 
perity of  farmers  and  by  an  unprecedented  rise  of  wages  of  day- 
laborers.  Salaried  and  professional  men  suffered  disproportion- 
ately from  the  parallel  rise  in  the  cost  of  living.  Trade-unionists 
enormously  increased  their  influence  both  by  reason  of  the  greater 
demand  for  their  individual  service  and  by  reason  of  their  per- 
fected organization  and  their  consequent  gain  in  collective  bar- 
gaining. 

(c)  There  was  a  new  vogue  of  Marxian  Socialism.  Socialists 
controlled  Russia  from  the  time  of  the  Bolshevist  Revolution  in 
November,  191 7;  they  played  prominent  roles  in  the  revolu- 
tionary movements  in  Germany,  Austria,  and  Hungary,  in  1918, 
and  they  were  more  vocal  than  ever  in  Italy,  in  France,  in  Great 
Britain,  and  in  the  United  States.  Nevertheless  they  were  much 
divided  among  themselves  on  aims  and  tactics :  generally,  in 
Allied  countries,  they  had  learned  to  cooperate  loyally  with  bour- 
geois governments,  while  in  Germany  and  Austria  the  majority 
of  them  found  no  great  difficulty  in  sharing  responsibility  for  the 
new  revolutionary  governments  with  Catholic  parties ;  in  Russia, 
the  Bolshevist  Socialists  in  attempting  to  carry  the  teachings  of 
Marx  into  practice,  profoundly  modified  the  historic  traditions 
of  their  party  and  succeeded  in  alienating  not  only  the  mass  of 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  407 

non-Socialists  throughout  the  world  but  the  majority  of  Socialists 
in  foreign  countries  and  a  large  number  of  Russian  Socialists. 
It  seemed  as  though  the  Great  War  had  cleft  Marxian  Socialism 
asunder :  one  wing  was  so  fully  committed  to  force  and  violence 
as  to  nullify  Marx's  political  doctrines ;  the  other  wing  was  so 
completely  given  to  compromise  as  to  postpone  indefinitely  the 
realization  of  Marx's  economic  program.  Socialism  might  be 
the  goal  of  the  future,  but  it  was  likely  to  be  attained,  if  at  all, 
through  middle-class  cooperation  rather  than  by  the  unaided  ef- 
forts of  old-fashioned  doctrinaire  Marxian  Socialists. 

{d)  Over  against  the  manifest  tendency  toward  state  socialism 
appeared,  curiously  enough,  a  counter-tendency  toward  what  for 
lack  of  a  better  phrase  may  be  termed  gild  socialism.  By  this 
term  is  meant  all  those  expedients,  such  as  profit-sharing,  shop- 
stewards,  joint  management,  etc.,  by  which  the  workers  would 
gradually  gain  control,  and  then  ownership,  of  industries,  and 
thus  secure  direct  industrial  democracy  without  the  interposition 
of  the  state  except  as  a  regulator  and  accelerator  of  the  process 
and  as  a  protector  of  the  interests  of  the  public.  Certainly  con- 
siderable progress  was  made  in  Great  Britain,  in  the  United  States, 
in  France,  in  Italy,  and  in  Germany,  in  1918  and  in  1919,  toward 
admitting  representatives  of  the  workers  to  boards  of  directors  of 
various  industrial  establishments  and  toward  sharing  profits  be- 
tween capitalists  and  workingmen. 

Many  persons  professed  to  see  in  gild  socialism  the  most  prac- 
ticable solution  of  the  perplexing  but  all-important  problem  of 
improving  the  condition  of  the  working  classes  without  decreas- 
ing production,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  promising  antidote 
alike  to  state  socialism,  with  its  dangerous  bureaucracy,  and  to 
Marxian  Socialism,  with  its  destructive  class-hatred.  Gild  social- 
ism in  industry,  taken  in  conjunction  with  an  agricultural  pro- 
gram of  small  holdings  and  of  cooperation  in  production,  buying 
and  selling,  might  provide  the  basis  for  a  significant  social  trans- 
formation during  the  ensuing  century.  It  should  be  remarked  in 
this  connection  that  among  many  groups  espousing  such  an  evolu- 
tion the  Social  Catholics  were  particularly  active  at  the  close  of 
the  Great  War :  it  was  the  burden  of  the  platforms  of  the  Center 
Party  in  Germany,  of  the  Christian  Socialist  Party  in  Austria, 
of  the  Democratic  Party  in  Poland,  of  the  Clericals  in  Belgium, 
of  the  Action  Liberate  in  France,  and  of  the  newly  formed  Catho- 
lic Popular  Party  in  Italy;  it  received  the  endorsement  of  the 
Catholic  War  Council  of  the  United  States. 

(e)  Whatever  might  be  thought  of  the  relative  value  of  schemes 


4o8         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

of  state  socialism  and  gild  socialism,  there  was  certainly  in  the 
popular  mind  at  the  close  of  the  Great  War  a  firmer  conviction 
than  ever  before  that  social  reforms  and  readjustments  were 
imperatively  needed,  that  cooperation  must  be  substituted  for 
competition.  Just  how  this  conviction  would  be  translated  into 
action,  none  could  predict  with  assurance ;  that  it  would  involve 
an  eclectic  choice  of  the  best  points  in  all  existing  social  theories 
—  capitalism,  socialism,  state-intervention,  trade-unionism, 
profit-sharing,  and  industrial  democracy  —  admitted  of  little 
doubt.  At  any  rate  it  was  evident  that  the  world  was  quite  done 
with  the  economic  individualism  of  the  preceding  century.  As 
the  British  Labor  Party  said  in  its  famous  '^ reconstruction"  pro- 
nouncement of  January,  191 8:  ''The  individualist  system  of 
capitalist  production  .  .  .  may,  we  hope,  have  received  a  death- 
blow. With  it  must  go  the  political  system  and  ideas  in  which 
it  naturally  found  expression.  We  of  the  Labor  Party,  whether 
in  opposition  or  in  due  time  called  upon  to  form  an  admin- 
istration, will  certainly  lend  no  hand  to  its  revival.  If  we  in 
Britain  are  to  escape  from  the  decay  of  civilization  itself  we 
must  insure  that  what  is  presently  to  be  built  up  is  a  new  social 
order,  based  not  on  fighting,  but  on  fraternity,  —  not  on  the 
competitive  struggle  for  the  means  of  bare  life,  but  on  a  deliber- 
ately planned  cooperation  in  production  and  distribution  for  the 
benefit  of  all,  —  not  on  the  utmost  possible  inequality  of  riches, 
but  on  a  systematic  approach  toward  a  healthy  equality  of  mate- 
rial circumstances  for  every  person,  —  not  on  an  enforced  do- 
minion over  subject  nations,  subject  races,  subject  colonies,  sub- 
ject classes,  or  a  subject  sex,  but,  in  industry  as  well  as  in 
government,  on  that  equal  freedom,  that  general  consciousness 
of  consent,  and  that  widest  possible  participation  in  power, 
both  economic  and  political,  which  is  characteristic  of  democ- 
racy. We  do  not,  of  course,  pretend  that  it  is  possible,  even 
after  the  drastic  clearing  away  that  is  now  going  on,  to  build 
society  anew  in  a  year  or  two  of  feverish  '  reconstruction.'  What 
the  Labor  Party  intends  to  satisfy  itself  about  is  that  each  brick 
that  it  helps  to  lay  shall  go  to  erect  the  structure  that  it  intends, 
and  no  other." 

IX.  Science  and  Education.  The  Great  War  gave  an  impetus 
to  certain  applications  of  experimental  science.  Thus,  there  was 
an  extraordinary  development  not  only  of  strictly  mihtary  weap- 
ons such  as  heavy  artillery,  machine  guns,  poisonous  gases, 
tanks,  airplanes,  and  submarines,  but  also  of  devices  and  imple- 
ments which  could  be  put  to  important  commercial  uses  in  the 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  409 

subsequent  era  of  peace.  To  this  category  belonged  the  gradual 
perfecting  of  all  sorts  of  aircraft,  so  that  in  1 919  government  mails 
were  being  regularly  transported  by  airplane  between  chief  cities 
in  the  United  States,  and  British  and  American  air  pilots  were 
crossing  the  Atlantic  in  their  frail,  high-powered  bird-ships.  To 
this  category  belonged  also  the  development  of  wireless  telephony 
and  of  devices  for  detecting  sounds  in  water.  Likewise  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  were  forced  by  circumstances  of  the 
war  to  improve  their  chemical  and  dyeing  industries  and  to  bring 
them  up  to  a  par  with  those  of  Germany. 

In  their  endeavors  to  return  wounded  men  to  something  like 
their  former  condition  army  surgeons  accomplished  marvels,  and 
surgery  developed  in  the  course  of  the  war  to  a  point  which  ordi- 
narily would  have  taken  many  years  to  attain.  Considerable 
progress  was  made,  moreover,  in  the  sciences  of  sanitation  and 
preventive  medicine,  in  the  age-long  struggle  against  venereal 
disease,  and  in  psycho-analysis  and  other  methods  of  treating 
mental  disorders.  Psychology  of  groups  as  well  as  of  individuals 
was  studied  scientifically ;  and  in  colleges  and  universities  every- 
where there  was  an  immensely  magnified  interest  in  the  social 
sciences  —  in  politics,  in  economics,  in  sociology,  and  in  recent 
history. 

To  the  thousands  of  young  men  of  every  nation  who  partici- 
pated in  the  Great  War  and  survived  it  the  experiences  in  camp 
and  on  the  field  possessed  undoubted  educational  value.  Most 
of  these  young  men  had  formerly  not  traveled  far  from  home,  but 
during  the  war  they  were  perpetually  on  the  move,  and  they  must 
have  received  a  tremendous  number  of  significant  impressions 
which  they  could  have  received  in  no  other  way.  The  barbarian 
migrations  of  early  centuries  and  the  Crusades  of  the  Middle  Ages 
have  long  been  pointed  to  as  educational  tours  of  the  greatest 
importance ;  yet  neither  the  Crusades  nor  the  barbarian  mi- 
grations affected  nearly  so  many  persons  or  embraced  such  ex- 
tended regions  as  did  the  Great  War.  In  the  Great  War,  whole 
nations  were  in  arms ;  millions  of  Russians  sojourned  in  Germany, 
millions  of  Austrians  in  Russia,  millions  of  Germans  and  English- 
men in  France ;  and  the  trip  of  two  million  young  Americans  to 
Europe  surpassed  any  educational  tour  ever  planned  by  Cook's 
or  other  commercial  firm. 

The  influence  of  education  upon  the  development  of  a  nation's 
ideals  as  well  as  upon  the  efficiency  of  an  army  was  clearly  per- 
ceived in  the  case  of  Germany ;  and  one  Allied  government  after 
another  sought  while  the  war  was  still  in  progress  to  supplement 


4IO         A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 

the  work  of  the  public  schools  at  home  by  conducting  school- 
classes  among  the  troops  at  the  front.  In  Great  Britain,  a  radical 
and  far-reaching  Education  Bill,  sponsored  by  Herbert  Fisher, 
the  secretary  of  education  in  the  Lloyd  George  cabinet,  was  en- 
acted in  1918. 

X.  Religion.  The  Great  War  produced  no  spectacular  re- 
ligious "revival,"  as  had  been  predicted.  It  did  promote,  how- 
ever, closer  cooperation  than  had  ever  before  obtained  among 
Catholics,  Protestants,  Jews,  and  even  Mohammedans.  In  the 
case  of  the  United  States,  the  joint  endeavors  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  the  Knights  of  Columbus,  the 
Jewish  Welfare  Board,  and  the  Salvation  Army  served  both  to 
maintain  the  high  morale  of  the  troops  at  the  front  and  to  pro- 
mote among  the  civilian  population  at  home  a  greater  interest 
in  reHgious  organizations.  In  the  case  of  all  countries,  neutrals 
as  well  as  belHgerents,  the  International  Red  Cross  Society 
performed  great  and  noble  service  for  mankind.  Among  Chris- 
tians outside  of  the  Roman  communion  there  were  renewed 
efforts  to  secure  some  sort  of  organic  church  unity. 

On  the  whole,  though  Pope  Benedict  XV  was  denounced  by 
some  Allied  citizens  as  pro- German  and  by  some  Germans  as  too 
pro-Ally,  the  Catholic  Church  was  ably  guided  during  the  Great 
War  and  remained  true  to  its  high  ideals.  Politically  it  occupied 
a  better  position  at  the  close  of  the  struggle  than  at  the  beginning ; 
without  materially  impairing  the  prestige  of  the  Catholic  Center 
Party  in  Germany,  Catholic  Belgium  had  been  vindicated. 
Catholic  Poland  had  been  reborn,  Portugal  had  resumed  diplo- 
matic relations  with  the  Holy  See,  Great  Britain  had  sent  an 
envoy  to  the  Vatican,  and  a  more  cordial  attitude  toward  the 
Church  had  been  evinced  by  both  France  and  Italy.  Though 
the  Italian  Government  successfully  prevented  the  pope  from 
raising  the  "Roman  Question,"  the  Vatican  obtained  from  the 
Peace  Congress  a  solemn  guarantee  of  the  inviolability  of  the 
property  of  Christian  missions  abroad.  The  ardor  with  which 
Catholics  supported  the  new  national  movements  and  espoused 
programs  of  social  reform  was  a  tribute  to  the  continuing  vital- 
ity of  their  faith. 

If  the  Great  War  did  not  immediately  redound  to  the  advan- 
tage of  any  particular  ecclesiastical  system,  it  at  any  rate  dealt 
a  body-blow  at  those  doctrines  of  materialism  and  determinism 
which  had  been  taking  root  everywhere  throughout  the  nineteenth 
century  and  which  had  flourished  and  flowered  mightily  and  poi- 
sonously  in  Germany  on  the  eve  of  the  final  conflict.     Once  more 


A  NEW  ERA  BEGINS  411 

*' spiritualism"  came  to  the  fore;  man  grew  interested  again  in 
the  phenomena  of  the  "unseen";  and  again  absolute  standards 
of  right  could  be  referred  to  with  no  more  cynical  smiling  than 
was  occasioned  by  mention  of  relative  standards  of  might.  Not 
the  struggle  for  existence  between  each  two  specimens  of  the  hu- 
man species  was  to  be  the  '* natural"  rule  for  the  future,  but  the 
natural  order  was  to  be  one  with  the  supernatural,  that  all  men 
are  brothers  and  that  in  unselfish  cooperation  lies  the  hope  of 
humanity  and  civiHzation. 

Cooperation  was  the  chief  lesson  taught  by  the  Great  War. 
No  divine-right  monarch  could  henceforth  set  his  will  above  that 
of  the  nation  —  such  was  the  moral  of  the  first  Russian  Revolu- 
tion. No  single  social  class  could  henceforth  dominate  a  whole 
community  —  such  was  the  moral  of  the  two  Russian  Revolutions 
and  likewise  of  the  upheavals  throughout  Central  Europe.  No 
one  nation  could  henceforth  set  itself  above  all  others  and  domi- 
nate the  whole  world  —  such  was  the  moral  of  the  defeat  and  col- 
lapse of  Germany.  Cooperation  between  social  classes,  cooper- 
ation between  nations  —  these  were  to  be  the  watchwords  and 
countersigns  of  the  new  era.  From  the  ruinous  competition  in 
industrial  life  and  the  maid  anarchy  in  international  relations, 
which  held  sway  in  19 14,  to  the  cooperative  enterprise  and  the 
League  of  Nations  of  1920  was  a  far  cry.  The  revolution  was 
due  to  the  turmoil  and  terrors  and  travail  of  the  Great  War. 


APPENDIX  I 

THE  COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

The  high  contracting  parties,  in  order  to  promote  interna- 
tional cooperation  and  to  achieve  international  peace  and 
security  by  the  acceptance  of  obligations  not  to  resort  to  war,  by 
the  prescription  of  open,  just,  and  honorable  relations  between 
nations,  by  the  firm  establishment  of  the  understandings  of  inter- 
national law  as  the  actual  rule  of  conduct  among  governments, 
and  by  the  maintenance  of  justice  and  a  scrupulous  respect  for 
all  treaty  obHgations  in  the  dealings  of  organized  peoples  with 
one  another,  agree  to  this  covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations. 

Article  i  .  —  The  original  members  of  the  League  of  Nations 
shall  be  those  of  the  signatories  which  are  named  in  the  annex 
to  this  covenant  and  also  such  of  those  other  States  named  in 
the  annex  as  shall  accede  without  reservation  to  this  covenant. 
Such  accession  shall  be  effected  by  a  declaration  deposited  with 
the  secretariat  within  two  months  of  the  coming  into  force  of  the 
covenant.  Notice  shall  be  sent  to  all  other  members  of  the 
League. 

Any  fully  self-governing  State,  dominion,  or  colony  not  named 
in  the  annex  may  become  a  member  of  the  League  if  its  admission 
is  agreed  to  by  two-thirds  of  the  assembly,  provided  that  it  shall 
give  effective  guarantee  of  its  sincere  intention  to  observe  its 
international  obligations,  and  shall  accept  such  regulations  as 
may  be  prescribed  by  the  League  in  regard  to  its  military,  naval 
and  air  forces  and  armaments. 

Any  member  of  the  League  may,  after  two  years'  notice  of  its 
intention  so  to  do,  withdraw  from  the  League,  provided  that  all 
its  international  obligations  and  all  its  obHgations  under  this 
covenant  shall  have  been  fulfilled  at  the  time  of  its  withdrawal. 

Article  2.  —  The  action  of  the  League  under  this  covenant 
shall  be  effected  through  the  instrumentality  of  an  assembly 
and  of  a  council,  with  a  permanent  secretariat. 

Article  3.  —  The  assembly  shall  consist  of  representatives 
of  the  members  of  the  League. 

413 


414  APPENDIX  I 

The  assembly  shall  meet  at  stated  intervals  and  from  time  to 
time  as  occasion  may  require  at  the  seat  of  the  League  or  at  such 
other  place  as  may  be  decided  upon. 

The  assembly  may  deal  at  its  meetings  with  any  matter  within 
the  sphere  of  action  of  the  League  or  afifecting  the  peace  of  the 
world. 

At  meetings  of  the  assembly  each  member  of  the  League  shall 
have  one  vote,  and  may  have  not  more  than  three  representatives. 

Article  4.  —  The  council  shall  consist  of  representatives  of 
the  principal  Allied  and  Associated  Powers,  together  with  repre- 
sentatives of  four  other  members  of  the  League.  These  four 
members  of  the  League  shall  be  selected  by  the  assembly  from 
time  to  time  in  its  discretion.  Until  the  appointment  of  the 
representatives  of  the  four  members  of  the  League  first  selected 
by  the  assembly,  representatives  of  Belgium,  Brazil,  Spain,  and 
Greece  shall  be  members  of  the  council. 

With  the  approval  of  the  majority  of  the  assembly,  the  council 
may  name  additional  members  of  the  League  whose  representa- 
tives shall  always  be  members  of  the  council ;  the  council  with 
like  approval  may  increase  the  number  of  members  of  the  League 
to  be  selected  by  the  assembly  for  representation  on  the  council. 

The  council  shall  meet  from  time  to  time  as  occasion  may  re- 
quire, and  at  least  once  a  year,  at  the  seat  of  the  League,  or  at 
such  other  place  as  may  be  decided  upon. 

The  council  may  deal  at  its  meetings  with  any  matter  within  the 
sphere  of  action  of  the  League  or  affecting  the  peace  of  the  world. 

Any  member  of  the  League  not  represented  on  the  council  shall 
be  invited  to  send  a  representative  to  sit  as  a  member  at  any 
meeting  of  the  council  during  the  consideration  of  matters 
specially  affecting  the  interests  of  that  member  of  the  League. 

At  meetings  of  the  council,  each  member  of  the  League  repre- 
sented on  the  council  shall  have  one  vote,  and  may  have  not 
more  than  one  representative. 

Article  5.  —  Except  where  otherwise  expressly  provided  in 
this  covenant  or  by  the  terms  of  the  present  treaty,  decisions 
at  any  meeting  of  the  assembly  or  of  the  council  shall  require 
the  agreement  of  all  the  members  of  the  League  represented  at 
the  meeting. 

All  matters  of  procedure  at  meetings  of  the  assembly  or  of  the 
council,  including  the  appointment  of  committees  to  investi- 
gate particular  matters,  shall  be  regulated  by  the  assembly  or  by 
the  council  and  may  be  decided  by  a  majority  of  the  members  of 
the  League  represented  at  the  meeting. 


THE   COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     415 

The  first  meeting  of  the  assembly  and  the  first  meeting  of  the 
council  shall  be  summoned  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
of  America. 

Article  6.  —  The  permanent  secretariat  shall  be  established 
at  the  seat  of  the  League.  The  secretariat  shall  comprise  a 
Secretary  General  and  such  secretaries  and  staff  as  may  be  re- 
quired. 

The  first  Secretary  General  shall  be  the  person  named  in  the 
annex;  thereafter  the  Secretary  General  shall  be  appointed  by 
the  council  with  the  approval  of  the  majority  of  the  assembly. 

The  secretaries  and  staff  of  the  secretariat  shall  be  appointed 
by  the  Secretary  General  with  the  approval  of  the  council. 

The  Secretary  General  shall  act  in  that  capacity  at  all  meet- 
ings of  the  assembly  and  of  the  council. 

The  expenses  of  the  secretariat  shall  be  borne  by  the  members 
of  the  League  in  accordance  with  the  apportionment  of  the  ex- 
penses of  the  International  Bureau  of  the  Universal  Postal  Union. 

Article  7.  —  The  seat  of  the  League  is  established  at  Geneva. 

The  council  may  at  any  time  decide  that  the  seat  of  the  League 
shall  be  established  elsewhere. 

All  positions  under  or  in  connection  with  the  League,  includ- 
ing the  secretariat,  shall  be  open  equally  to  men  and  women. 

Representatives  of  the  metnbers  of  the  League  and  officials  of 
the  League  when  engaged  on  business  of  the  League  shall  enjoy 
diplomatic  privileges  and  immunities. 

The  buildings  and  other  property  occupied  by  the  League  or 
its  officials  or  by  representatives  attending  its  meetings  shall  be 
inviolable. 

Article  8.  —  The  members  of  the  League  recognize  that  the 
maintenance  of  peace  requires  the  reduction  of  national  arma- 
ments to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  national  safety  and  the 
enforcement  by  common  action  of  international  obligations. 

The  council,  taking  account  of  the  geographical  situation  and 
circumstances  of  each  State,  shall  formulate  plans  for  such  re- 
duction for  the  consideration  and  action  of  the  several  govern- 
ments. 

Such  plans  shall  be  subject  to  reconsideration  and  revision  at 
least  every  ten  years. 

After  these  plans  shall  have  been  adopted  by  the  several  gov- 
ernments, the  limits  of  the  armaments  therein  fixed  shall  not  be 
exceeded  without  the  concurrence  of  the  council. 

The  members  of  the  League  agree  that  the  manufacture  by 
private  enterprise  of  munitions  and  implements  of  war  is  open 


4i6  APPENDIX  I 

to  grave  objections.  The  council  shall  advise  how  the  evil 
effects  attendant  upon  such  manufacture  can  be  prevented,  due 
regard  being  had  to  the  necessities  of  those  members  6f  the 
League  which  are  not  able  to  manufacture  the  munitions  and 
implements  of  war  necessary  for  their  safety. 

The  members  of  the  League  undertake  to  interchange  full  and 
frank  information  as  to  the  scale  of  their  armaments,  their  mili- 
tary and  naval  program  and  the  condition  of  such  of  their 
industries  as  are  adaptable  to  warlike  purposes. 

Article  9.  —  A  permanent  commission  shall  be  constituted 
to  advise  the  council  on  the  execution  of  the  provisions  of  Article 
I  and  8  and  on  mihtary  and  naval  questions  generally. 

Article  10.  —  The  members  of  the  League  undertake  to 
respect  and  preserve  as  against  external  aggression  the  terri- 
torial integrity  and  existing  political  independence  of  all  mem- 
bers of  the  League.  In  case  of  any  such  aggression  or  in  case  of 
any  threat  or  danger  of  such  aggression  the  council  shall  advise 
upon  the  means  upon  which  this  obhgation  shall  be  fulfilled. 

Article  ii. — Any  war  or  threat  of  war,  whether  imme- 
diately affecting  any  of  the  members  of  the  League  or  not,  is 
hereby  declared  a  matter  of  concern  to  the  whole  League,  and  the 
League  shall  take  any  action  that  shall  be  deemed  wise  and 
effectual  to  safeguard  the  peace  of  nations.  In  case  any  such 
emergency  should  arise  the  Secretary  General  shall  on  the  re- 
quest of  any  member  of  the  League  forthwith  summon  a  meeting 
of  the  council. 

It  is  also  declared  to  be  the  friendly  right  of  each  member  of 
the  League  to  bring  to  the  attention  of  the  assembly  or  of  the 
council  any  circumstances  whatever  affecting  international  re- 
lations which  threaten  to  disturb  international  peace  or  the 
good  understanding  between  nations  upon  which  peace  depends. 

Article  12.  —  The  members  of  the  League  agree  that  if  there 
should  arise  between  them  any  dispute  likely  to  lead  to  a  rupture, 
they  will  submit  the  matter  either  to  arbitration  or  to  inquiry 
by  the  council,  and  they  agree  in  no  case  to  resort  to  war  until 
three  months  after  the  award  by  the  arbitrators  or  the  report  by 
the  council. 

In  any  case  under  this  article  the  award  of  the  arbitrators  shall 
be  made  within  a  reasonable  time,  and  the  report  of  the  council 
shall  be  made  within  six  months  after  the  submission  of  the  dis- 
pute. 

Article  13.  —  The  members  of  the  League  agree  that  when- 
ever any  dispute  shall  arise  between  them  which  they  recognize 


THE   COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     417 

to  be  suitable  for  submission  to  arbitration  and  which  cannot 
be  satisfactorily  settled  by  diplomacy,  they  will  submit  the  whole 
subject-matter  to  arbitration. 

Disputes  as  to  the  interpretation  of  a  treaty,  as  to  any  question 
of  international  law,  as  to  the  existence  of  any  fact  which  if 
established  would  constitute  a  breach  of  any  international  obli- 
gation, or  as  to  the  extent  and  nature  of  the  reparation  to  be  made 
for  any  such  breach,  are  declared  to  be  among  those  which  are 
generally  suitable  for  submission  to  arbitration. 

For  the  consideration  of  any  such  dispute  the  Court  of  Arbi- 
tration to  which  the  case  is  referred  shall  be  the  court  agreed  on  by 
the  parties  to  the  dispute  or  stipulated  in  any  convention  exist- 
ing between  them. 

The  members  of  the  League  agree  that  they  will  carry  out  in 
full  good  faith  any  award  that  may  be  rendered,  and  that  they 
will  not  resort  to  war  against  a  member  of  the  League  which  com- 
plies therewith.  In  the  event  of  any  failure  to  carry  out  such  an 
award,  the  council  shall  propose  what  steps  should  be  taken  to 
give  effect  thereto. 

Article  14.  —  The  council  shall  formulate  and  submit  to  the 
members  of  the  League  for  adoption  plans  for  the  estabHshment 
of  a  Permanent  Court  of  International  Justice.  The  court  shall 
be  competent  to  hear  and  determine  any  dispute  of  an  inter- 
national character  which  the  parties  thereto  submit  to  it.  The 
court  may  also  give  an  advisory  opinion  upon  any  dispute  or 
question  referred  to  it  by  the  council  or  by  the  assembly. 

Article  15.  —  If  there  should  arise  between  members  of  the 
League  any  dispute  Hkely  to  lead  to  a  rupture,  which  is  not  sub- 
mitted to  arbitration  in  accordance  with  Article  13,  the  members 
of  the  League  agree  that  they  will  submit  the  matter  to  the 
council.  Any  party  to  the  dispute  may  effect  such  submission 
by  giving  notice  of  the  existence  of  the  dispute  to  the  Secretary 
General,  who  will  make  all  necessary  arrangements  for  a  full 
investigation  and  consideration  thereof. 

For  this  purpose  the  parties  to  the  dispute  will  communicate 
to  the  Secretary  General,  as  promptly  as  possible,  statements 
of  their  case  with  all  relevant  facts  and  papers,  and  the  council 
may  forthwith  direct  the  publication  thereof. 

The  council  shall  endeavor  to  effect  a  settlement  of  the  dis- 
pute, and  if  such  efforts  are  successful,  a  statement  shall  be  made 
pubHc  giving  such  facts  and  explanations  regarding  the  dispute 
and  the  terms  of  settlement  thereof  as  the  council  may  deem 
appropriate. 

2  E 


4i8  APPENDIX  I 

If  the  dispute  is  not  thus  settled,  the  council  either  unanimously 
or  by  a  majority  vote  shall  make  and  publish  a  report  containing 
a  statement  of  the  facts  of  the  dispute  and  the  recommendations 
which  are  deemed  just  and  proper  in  regard  thereto. 

Any  member  of  the  League  represented  on  the  council  may 
make  public  a  statement  of  the  facts  of  the  dispute  and  of  its 
conclusions  regarding  the  same. 

If  a  report  by  the  council  is  unanimously  agreed  to  by  the 
members  thereof  other  than  the  representatives  of  one  or  more 
of  the  parties  to  the  dispute,  the  members  of  the  League  agree 
that  they  will  not  go  to  war  with  any  party  to  the  dispute  which 
compHes  with  the  recommendations  of  the  report. 

If  the  council  fails  to  reach  a  report  which  is  unanimously 
agreed  to  by  the  members  thereof  other  than  the  representatives 
of  one  or  more  of  the  parties  to  the  dispute,  the  members  of  the 
League  reserve  to  themselves  the  right  to  take  such  action  as  they 
shall  consider  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  right  and  justice. 

If  the  dispute  between  the  parties  is  claimed  by  one  of  them, 
and  is  found  by  the  council  to  arise  out  of  a  matter  which  by 
international  law  is  solely  within  the  domestic  jurisdiction  of 
that  party,  the  council  shall  so  report,  and  shall  make  no  recom- 
mendation as  to  its  settlement. 

The  council  may  in  any  case  under  this  article  refer  the  dis- 
pute to  the  assembly.  The  dispute  shall  be  so  referred  at  the 
request  of  either  party  to  the  dispute,  provided  that  such  re- 
quest be  made  within  fourteen  days  after  the  submission  of  the 
dispute  to  the  council. 

In  any  case  referred  to  the  assembly  all  the  provisions  of  this 
article  and  of  Article  1 2  relating  to  the  action  and  powers  of  the 
council  shall  apply  to  the  action  and  powers  of  the  assembly,  pro- 
vided that  a  report  made  by  the  assembly,  if  concurred  in  by  the 
representatives  of  those  members  of  the  League  represented  on 
the  council  and  of  a  majority  of  the  other  members  of  the 
League,  exclusive  in  each  case  of  the  representatives  of  the 
parties  to  the  dispute,  shall  have  the  same  force  as  a  report  by 
the  council  concurred  in  by  all  the  members  thereof  other  than 
the  representatives  of  one  or  more  of  the  parties  to  the  dispute. 

Article  16.  —  Should  any  member  of  the  League  resort  to 
war  in  disregard  of  its  covenants  under  Articles  12,  13,  or  15,  it 
shall  ipso  facto  be  deemed  to  have  committed  an  act  of  war 
against  all  other  members  of  the  League,  which  hereby  under- 
take immediately  to  subject  it  to  the  severance  of  all  trade  or 
financial  relations,  the  prohibition  of  all  intercourse  between 


THE  COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     419 

their  nationals  and  the  nationals  of  the  covenant-breaking  State, 
and  the  prevention  of  all  financial,  commercial,  or  personal  inter- 
course between  the  nationals  of  the  covenant-breaking  State  and 
the  nationals  of  any  other  State,  whether  a  member  of  the  League 
or  not. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  council  in  such  case  to  recommend 
to  the  several  governments  concerned  what  effective  military, 
naval  or  air  force  the  members  of  the  League  shall  severally  con- 
tribute to  the  armed  forces  to  be  used  to  protect  the  covenants 
of  the  League. 

The  members  of  the  League  agree,  further,  that  they  will 
mutually  support  one  another  in  the  financial  and  economic 
measures  which  are  taken  under  this  article,  in  order  to  mini- 
mize the  loss  and  inconvenience  resulting  from  the  above  meas- 
ures, and  that  they  will  mutually  support  one  another  in  resist- 
ing any  special  measures  aimed  at  one  of  their  number  by  the 
covenant-breaking  State,  and  that  they  will  take  the  necessary 
steps  to  afford  passage  through  their  territory  to  the  forces  of 
any  of  the  members  of  the  League  which  are  cooperating  to  pro- 
tect the  covenants  of  the  League. 

Any  member  of  the  League  which  has  violated  any  covenant 
of  the  League  may  be  declared  to  be  no  longer  a  member  of  the 
League  by  a  vote  of  the  council  concurred  in  by  the  representa- 
tives of  all  the  other  members  of  the  League  represented  thereon. 

Article  17.  —  In  the  event  of  a  dispute  between  a  member  of 
the  League  and  a  State  which  is  not  a  member  of  the  League,  or 
between  States  not  members  of  the  League, the  State  or  States  not 
members  of  the  League  shall  be  invited  to  accept  the  obligations 
of  membership  in  the  League  for  the  purposes  of  such  dispute, 
upon  such  conditions  as  the  council  may  deem  just.  If  such 
invitation  is  accepted,  the  provisions  of  Articles  12  to  16  inclu- 
sive shall  be  applied  with  such  modifications  as  may  be  deemed 
necessary  by  the  council. 

Upon  such  invitation  being  given  the  council  shall  immediately 
institute  an  inquiry  into  the  circumstances  of  the  dispute  and 
recommend  such  action  as  may  seem  best  and  most  effectual 
in  the  circumstances. 

If  a  State  so  invited  shall  refuse  to  accept  the  obligations  of 
membership  in  the  League  for  the  purposes  of  such  dispute,  and 
shall  resort  to  war  against  a  member  of  the  League,  the  pro- 
visions of  Article  16  shall  be  applicable  as  against  the  State 
taking  such  action. 

If  both  parties  to  the  dispute  when  so  invited  refuse  to  accept 


420  APPENDIX  I 

the  obligations  of  membership  in  the  League  for  the  purposes  of 
such  dispute,  the  council  may  take  such  measures  and  make  such 
recommendations  as  will  prevent  hostilities  and  will  result  in  the 
settlement  of  the  dispute. 

Article  i8.  —  Every  treaty  or  international  engagement 
entered  into  hereafter  by  any  member  of  the  League  shall  be 
forthwith  registered  with  the  Secretariat  and  shall  as  soon  as 
possible  be  published  by  it.  No  such  treaty  or  international 
engagement  shall  be  binding  until  so  registered. 

Article  19.  —  The  assembly  may  from  time  to  time  advise 
the  reconsideration  by  members  of  the  League  of  treaties  which 
have  become  inapplicable  and  the  consideration  of  international 
conditions  whose  continuance  might  endanger  the  peace  of  the 
world. 

Article  20.  —  The  members  of  the  League  severally  agree 
that  this  covenant  is  accepted  as  abrogating  all  obligations  or 
understandings  inter  se  which  are  inconsistent  with  the  terms 
thereof,  and  solemnly  undertake  that  they  will  not  hereafter 
enter  into  any  engagements  inconsistent  with  the  terms  thereof. 

In  case  any  member  of  the  League  shall,  before  becoming  a 
member  of  the  League,  have  undertaken  any  obligations  incon- 
sistent with  the  terms  of  this  covenant,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of 
such  member  to  take  immediate  steps  to  procure  its  release  from 
such  obligations. 

Article  21.  —  Nothing  in  this  covenant  shall  be  deemed  to 
affect  the  validity  of  international  engagements,  such  as  treaties 
of  arbitration  or  regional  understandings  like  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, for  securing  the  maintenance  of  peace. 

Article  22.  —  To  those  colonies  and  territories  which  as  a 
consequence  of  the  late  war  have  ceased  to  be  under  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  States  which  formerly  governed  them  and  which 
are  inhabited  by  peoples  not  able  to  stand  by  themselves  under 
the  strenuous  conditions  of  the  modern  world,  there  should  be 
appHed  the  principle  that  the  well-being  and  development 
of  such  peoples  form  a  sacred  trust  of  civilization  and  that 
securities  for  the  performance  of  this  trust  should  be  embodied 
in  this  covenant. 

The  best  method  of  giving  practical  effect  to  this  principle  is 
that  the  tutelage  of  such  peoples  should  be  intrusted  to  advanced 
nations  who  by  reason  of  their  resources,  their  experience  or  their 
geographical  position  can  best  undertake  this  responsibility,  and 
who  are  willing  to  accept  it,  and  that  this  tutelage  should  be  ex- 
ercised by  them  as  mandataries  on  behalf  of  the  League. 


THE  COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     421 

The  character  of  the  mandate  must  differ  according  to  the  stage 
of  the  development  of  the  people,  the  geographical  situation  of 
the  territory,  its  economic  conditions  and  other  similar  circum- 
stances. 

Certain  communities  formerly  belonging  to  the  Turkish 
Empire  have  reached  a  stage  of  development  where  their  exist- 
ence as  independent  nations  can  be  provisionally  recognized 
subject  to  the  rendering  of  administrative  advice  and  assistance 
by  a  mandatary  until  such  time  as  they  are  able  to  stand  alone. 
The  wishes  of  these  communities  must  be  a  principal  considera- 
tion in  the  selection  of  the  mandatary. 

Other  peoples,  especially  those  of  Central  Africa,  are  at  such 
a  stage  that  the  mandatary  must  be  responsible  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  territory  under  conditions  which  will  guarantee 
freedom  of  conscience  and  reHgion,  subject  only  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  public  order  and  morals,  the  prohibition  of  abuses  such 
as  the  slave  trade,  the  arms  traffic  and  the  liquor  traffic,  and  the 
prevention  of  the  establishment  of  fortifications  or  military  and 
naval  bases  and  of  military  training  of  the  natives  for  other  than 
poHce  purposes  and  the  defense  of  territory,  and  will  also  secure 
equal  opportunities  for  the  trade  and  commerce  of  other  members 
of  the  League. 

There  are  territories,  such  as  Southwest  Africa  and  certain  of 
the  South  Pacific  islands,  which,  owing  to  the  sparseness  of  their 
population  or  their  small  size,  or  their  remoteness  from  the 
centers  of  civilization,  or  their  geographical  contiguity  to  the 
territory  of  the  mandatary,  and  other  circumstances,  can  be 
best  administered  under  the  laws  of  the  mandatary  as  integral 
portions  of  its  territory,  subject  to  the  safeguards  above  men- 
tioned in  the  interests  of  the  indigenous  population. 

In  every  case  of  mandate  the  mandatary  shall  render  to  the 
council  an  annual  report  in  reference  to  the  territory  committed 
to  its  charge. 

The  degree  of  authority,  control,  or  administration  to  be 
exercised  by  the  mandatary  shall,  if  not  previously  agreed  upon 
by  the  members  of  the  League,  be  explicitly  defined  in  each  case 
by  the  council. 

A  permanent  commission  shall  be  constituted  to  receive  and 
examine  the  annual  reports  of  the  mandataries  and  to  advise  the 
council  on  all  matters  relating  to  the  observance  of  the  mandates. 

Article  23.  —  Subject  to  and  in  accordance  with  the  pro- 
visions of  international  conventions  existing  or  hereafter  to  be 
agreed  upon,  the  members  of  the  League : 


422  APPENDIX  I 

(a)  will  endeavor  to  secure  and  maintain  fair  and  humane 
conditions  of  labor  for  men,  women,  and  children,  both  in  their 
own  countries  and  in  all  countries  to  which  their  commercial 
and  industrial  relations  extend,  and  for  that  purpose  will  estab- 
lish and  maintain  the  necessary  international  organizations; 

(b)  undertake  to  secure  just  treatment  of  the  native  inhabit- 
ants of  territories  under  their  control; 

(c)  will  intrust  the  League  with  the  general  supervision  over 
the  execution  of  agreements  with  regard  to  the  traffic  in  women 
and  children  and  the  traffic  in  opium  and  other  dangerous  drugs ; 

(d)  will  intrust  the  League  with  the  general  supervision  of 
the  trade  in  arms  and  ammunition  with  the  countries  to  which 
the  control  of  this  traffic  is  necessary  in  the  common  interest; 

(e)  will  make  provision  to  secure  and  maintain  freedom  of 
communications  and  of  transit  and  equitable  treatment  for  the 
commerce  of  all  members  of  the  League.  In  this  connection  the 
special  necessities  of  the  regions  devastated  during  the  war  of 
1914-1918  shall  be  borne  in  mind ; 

(/)  will  endeavor  to  take  steps  in  matters  of  international 
concern  for  the  prevention  and  control  of  disease. 

Article  24.  —  There  shall  be  placed  under  the  direction  of 
the  League  all  international  bureaus  already  established  by 
general  treaties  if  the  parties  to  such  treaties  consent  All  such 
international  bureaus  and  all  commissions  for  the  regulation  of 
matters  of  international  interest  hereafter  constituted  shall  be 
placed  under  the  direction  of  the  League. 

In  all  matters  of  international  interest  which  are  regulated  by 
general  conventions  but  which  are  not  placed  under  the  control 
of  international  bureaus  or  commissions,  the  secretariat  of  the 
League  shall,  subject  to  the  consent  of  the  council  and  if  desired 
by  the  parties,  collect  and  distribute  all  relevant  information 
and  shall  render  any  other  assistance  which  may  be  necessary 
or  desirable. 

The  council  may  include  as  part  of  the  expenses  of  the  secre- 
tariat the  expenses  of  any  bureau  or  commission  which  is  placed 
under  the  direction  of  the  League. 

Article  25.  —  The  members  of  the  League  agree  to  encourage 
and  promote  the  establishment  and  cooperation  of  duly  author- 
ized voluntary  national  Red  Cross  organizations  having  as  pur- 
poses the  improvement  of  health,  the  prevention  of  disease,  and 
the  mitigation  of  suffering  throughout  the  world. 

Article  26.  —  Amendments  to  this  covenant  will  take  effect 
when  ratified  by  the  members  of  the  League  whose  representa- 


THE  COVENANT  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS     423 

tives  compose  the  council  and  by  a  majority  of  the  members  of 
the  League  whose  representatives  compose  the  assembly. 

No  such  amendment  shall  bind  any  member  of  the  League 
which  signifies  its  dissent  therefrom,  but  in  that  case  it  shall  cease 
to  be  a  member  of  the  League. 

ANNEX 

I.  Original  members  of  the  League  of  Nations  signatories  of 
the  treaty  of  peace. 

United  States  of  America  Haiti 


Belgium 

Hedjaz 

Bolivia 

Honduras 

Brazil 

Italy 

British  Empire 

Japan 

Canada 

Liberia 

Australia 

Nicaragua 

South  Africa 

Panama 

New  Zealand 

Peru 

India 

Poland 

China 

Portugal 

Cuba 

Rumania 

Ecuador 

Serb-Croat-Slovene  State 

France 

Siam 

Greece 

Czecho-Slovakia 

Guatemala 

Uruguay 

States  invited  to  accede  to  the  covenant. 

Argentine  Republic 

Persia 

Chile 

Salvador 

Colombia 

Spain 

Denmark 

Sweden 

Netherlands 

Switzerland 

Norway 

Venezuela 

Paraguay 

II.   First  Secretary  General  of  the  League  of  Nations.     The 
Honorable  Sir  James  Eric  Drummond,  K.C.M.G.,  C.B. 


APPENDIX   II 

AMERICAN  RESERVATIONS  TO  THE  TREATY  OF  VERSAILLES 

(Adopted  by  majority  vote  of  the  United  States  Senate  on  November  8, 
1919,  and  again,  with  minor  modifications,  in  March,  1920.  President 
Wilson  consistently  opposed  them,  however,  and  on  both  occasions  their 
proponents  failed  to  muster  the  necessary  two-thirds  vote  of  the  United 
States  Senate  to  assure  American  ratification  of  the  treaty  of  Versailles 
with  these  Reservations.) 

That  the  Senate  advise  and  consent  to  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty  of  peace  with  Germany  concluded  at  Versailles  on  the 
28th  day  of  June,  1919,  subject  to  the  following  reservations 
and  understandings,  which  are  hereby  made  a  part  and  condi- 
tion of  this  resolution  of  ratification,  which  ratification  is  not 
to  take  efifect  or  bind  the  United  States  until  the  said  reservations 
and  understandings  adopted  by  the  Senate  have  been  accepted 
by  an  exchange  of  notes  as  a  part  and  a  condition  of  this  reso- 
lution of  ratification  by  at  least  three  of  the  four  principal  allied 
and  associated  powers,  to  wit,  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy,  and 
Japan : 

1.  The  United  States  so  understands  and  construes  Article 
I.  that  in  case  of  notice  of  withdrawal  from  the  League  of  Nations, 
as  provided  in  said  article,  the  United  States  shall  be  the  sole 
judge  as  to  whether  all  its  international  obligations  and  all  its 
obligations  under  the  said  covenant  have  been  fulfilled,  and 
notice  of  withdrawal  by  the  United  States  may  be  given  by  a 
concurrent  resolution  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 

2.  The  United  States  assumes  no  obligation  to  preserve  the 
territorial  integrity  or  political  independence  of  any  other  country 
or  to  interfere  in  controversies  between  nations  —  whether 
members  of  the  League  or  not  —  under  the  provisions  of  Article 
X.,  or  to  employ  the  military  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States 
under  any  article  of  the  treaty  for  any  purpose,  unless  in  any 
particular  case  the  Congress,  which,  under  the  Constitution,  has 
the  sole  power  to  declare  war  or  authorize  the  employment  of 
the  military  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States,  shall  by  act 
or  joint  resolution  so  provide. 

424 


AMERICAN   RESERVATIONS   TO   THE   TREATY     425 

3.  No  mandate  shall  be  accepted  by  the  United  States  under 
Article  XXIL,  Part  L,  or  any  other  provision  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  with  Germany,  except  by  action  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States. 

4.  The  United  States  reserves  to  itself  exclusively  the  right 
to  decide  what  questions  are  within  its  domestic  jurisdiction  and 
declares  that  all  domestic  and  political  questions  relating  wholly 
or  in  part  to  its  internal  affairs,  including  immigration,  labor, 
coastwise  traffic,  the  tariff,  commerce,  the  suppression  of  traffic 
in  women  and  children,  and  in  opium  and  other  dangerous  drugs, 
and  all  other  domestic  questions,  are  solely  within  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  United  States  and  are  not  under  this  treaty  to  be 
submitted  in  any  way  either  to  arbitration  or  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  Council  or  of  the  Assembly  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
or  any  agency  thereof,  or  to  the  decision  or  recommendation  of 
any  other  power. 

5.  The  United  States  will  not  submit  to  arbitration  or  to 
inquiry  by  the  Assembly  or  by  the  Council  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  provided  for  in  said  treaty  of  peace,  any  questions  which 
in  the  judgment  of  the  United  States  depend  upon  or  relate 
to  its  long-established  policy,  commonly  known  as  the  Monroe 
Doctrine ;  said  doctrine  is  to  be  interpreted  by  the  United 
States  alone  and  is  hereby  declared  to  be  wholly  outside  the  juris- 
diction of  said  League  of  Nations  and  entirely  unaffected  by 
any  provision  contained  in  the  said  treaty  of  peace  with  Ger- 
many. 

6.  The  United  States  withholds  its  assent  to  Articles  CLVL, 
CLVIL,  and  CLVIIL,  and  reserves  full  liberty  of  action  with 
respect  to  any  controversy  which  may  arise  under  said  articles 
between  the  Republic  of  China  and  the  Empire  of  Japan. 

7.  The  Congress  of  the  United  States  will  provide  by  law 
for  the  appointment  of  the  representatives  of  the  United  States 
in  the  Assembly  and  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations,  and 
may  in  its  discretion  provide  for  the  participation  of  the  United 
States  in  any  commission,  committee,  tribunal,  court,  council, 
or  conference,  or  in  the  selection  of  any  members  thereof  and  for 
the  appointment  of  members  of  said  commissions,  committees, 
tribunals,  courts,  councils,  or  conferences,  or  any  other  repre- 
sentatives under  the  treaty  of  peace,  or  in  carrying  out  its  pro- 
visions, and  until  such  participation  and  appointment  have  been 
so  provided  for  and  the  powers  and  duties  of  such  representa- 
tives have  been  defined  by  law,  no  person  shall  represent  the 
United  States  under  either  said  League  of  Nations  or  the  treaty 


426  APPENDIX   II 

of  peace  with  Germany  or  be  authorized  to  perform  any  act  for 
or  on  behalf  of  the  United  States  thereunder,  and  no  citizen  of 
the  United  States  shall  be  selected  or  appointed  as  a  member 
of  said  commissions,  committees,  tribunals,  courts,  councils,  or 
conferences  except  with  the  approval  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States. 

8.  The  United  States  understands  that  the  Reparations  Com- 
mission will  regulate  or  interfere  with  exports  from  the  United 
States  to  Germany,  or  from  Germany  to  the  United  States,  only 
when  the  United  States  by  act  or  joint  resolution  of  Congress 
approves  such  regulation  or  interference. 

9.  The  United  States  shall  not  be  obligated  to  contribute 
to  any  expenses  of  the  League  of  Nations,  or  of  the  secretariat, 
or  of  any  commission,  or  committee,  or  conference,  or  other 
agency,  organized  under  the  League  of  Nations  or  under  the 
treaty  or  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  treaty  provisions, 
unless  and  until  an  appropriation  of  funds  available  for  such  ex- 
penses shall  have  been  made  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 

10.  If  the  United  States  shall  at  any  time  adopt  any  plan  for 
the  limitation  of  armaments  proposed  by  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations  under  the  provisions  of  Article  VIIL,  it 
reserves  the  right  to  increase  such  armaments  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  council  whenever  the  United  States  is  threatened 
with  invasion  or  engaged  in  war. 

11.  The  United  States  reserves  the  right  to  permit,  in  its 
discretion,  the  nationals  of  a  covenant-breaking  State,  as  defined 
in  Article  XVI.  of  the  covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations,  residing 
within  the  United  States  or  in  countries  other  than  that  violat- 
ing said  Article  XVI.,  to  continue  their  commercial,  financial, 
and  personal  relations  with  the  nationals  of  the  United  States. 

12.  Nothing  in  Articles  CCXCVL,  CCXCVIL,  or  in  any  of 
the  annexes  thereto  or  in  any  other  article,  section,  or  annex 
of  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Germany  shall,  as  against  citizens  of 
the  United  States,  be  taken  to  mean  any  confirmation,  ratifica- 
tion, or  approval  of  any  act  otherwise  illegal  or  in  contravention 
of  the  rights  of  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

13.  The  United  States  withholds  its  assent  to  Part  XIII. 
(Articles  CCCLXXXVII.  to  CCCCXXVII.  inclusive)  unless 
Congress  by  act  or  joint  resolution  shall  hereafter  make  provision 
for  representation  in  the  organization  established  by  said  Part 
XIII.  and  in  such  event  the  participation  of  the  United  States 
will  be  governed  and  conditioned  by  the  provisions  of  such  act 
or  joint  resolution. 


AMERICAN   RESERVATIONS   TO   THE   TREATY     427 

14.  The  United  States  assumes  no  obligation  to  be  bound 
by  any  election,  decision,  report,  or  finding  of  the  Council  or 
Assembly  in  which  any  member  of  the  League  and  its  self-govern- 
ing dominions,  colonies,  or  parts  of  empire,  in  the  aggregate 
have  cast  more  than  one  vote,  and  assumes  no  obKgation  to  be 
bound  by  any  decision,  report,  or  finding  of  the  Council  or  As- 
sembly arising  out  of  any  dispute  between  the  United  States 
and  any  member  of  the  League  if  such  member,  or  any  self-gov- 
erning dominion,  colony,  empire,  or  part  united  with  it  politically 
has  voted. 


APPENDIX   III 

AGREEMENT  BETWEEN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  FRANCE 

(Signed  at  Versailles,  June  28,  1919,  but  not  ratified  by  the  United  States 

Senate.) 

Whereas  the  United  States  of  America  and  the  French  Repub- 
lic are  equally  animated  by  the  desire  to  maintain  the  peace  of  the 
world  so  happily  restored  by  the  treaty  of  peace  signed  at  Ver- 
sailles the  28th  day  of  June,  1919,  putting  an  end  to  the  war 
begun  by  the  aggression  of  the  German  Empire  and  ended  by 
the  defeat  of  that  power ;  and, 

Whereas  the  United  States  of  America  and  the  French  Republic 
are  fully  persuaded  that  an  unprovoked  movement  of  aggression 
by  Germany  against  France  would  not  only  violate  both  the 
letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  to  which  the 
United  States  of  America  and  the  French  Republic  are  parties, 
thus  exposing  France  anew  to  the  intolerable  burdens  of  an  un- 
provoked war,  but  that  such  aggression  on  the  part  of  Germany 
would  be  and  is  so  regarded  by  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  as  a  hos- 
tile act  against  all  the  powers  signatory  to  that  treaty  and  as 
calculated  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  world  by  involving  inevi- 
tably and  directly  the  states  of  Europe  and  indirectly,  as  expe- 
rience has  amply  and  unfortunately  demonstrated,  the  world 
at  large ;  and, 

Whereas  the  United  States  of  America  and  the  French  Repub- 
lic fear  that  the  stipulations  relating  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine 
contained  in  said  Treaty  of  Versailles  may  not  at  first  provide 
adequate  security  and  protection  to  France  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  United  States  of  America  as  one  of  the  signatories  of  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles  on  the  other ; 

Therefore,  the  United  States  of  America  and  the  French  Re- 
pubUc  having  decided  to  conclude  a  treaty  to  effect  these  neces- 
sary purposes,  Woodrow  Wilson,  President  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  and  Robert  Lansing,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United 
States,  specially  authorized  thereto  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  Georges  Clemenceau,  President  of  the  Council, 
Minister  of  War,  and  Stephen  Pichon,  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs, 

42S 


AGREEEMENT  BETWEEN  THE   tJ.  S.  AND  FRANCE    429 

specially  authorized  thereto  by  Raymond  Poincare,  President 
of  the  French  Republic,  have  agreed  upon  the  following  articles : 
Article  I.  —  In  case  the  following  stipulations  relating  to 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  contained  in  the  treaty  of  peace  with . 
Germany  signed  at  Versailles  the  28th  day  of  June,  1919,  by  the 
United  States  of  America,  the  French  Republic  and  the  British 
Empire  among  other  powers : 

''  Article  42.  Germany  is  forbidden  to  maintain  or  construct 
any  fortifications  either  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  or  on 
the  right  bank  to  the  west  of  a  line  drawn  50  kilometres  to 
the  east  of  the  Rhine. 

*' Article  43.  In  the  area  defined  above  the  maintenance 
and  assembly  of  armed  forces,  either  permanently  or  tempo- 
rarily, and  military  manoeuvres  of  any  kind,  as  well  as  the 
upkeep  of  all  permanent  works  for  mobilization  are  in  the  same 
way  forbidden. 

^'Article  44.     In  case   Germany  violates  in  any  manner 
whatever  the  provisions  of  Articles  42  and  43,  she  shall  be 
regarded  as  committing  a  hostile  act  against  the  powers  sig- 
natory of  the  present  treaty  and  as  calculated  to  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  world." 
may  not  at  first  provide  adequate  security  and  protection  to 
France,  the  United  States  of  America  shall  be  bound  to  come 
immediately  to  her  assistance  in  the  event  of  any  unprovoked 
movement  of  aggression  against  her  being  made  by  Germany. 

Article  IL  —  The  present  treaty,  in  similar  terms  with  the 
treaty  of  even  date  for  the  same  purpose  concluded  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  French  Republic,  a  copy  of  which  treaty  is  an- 
nexed hereto,  will  only  come  into  force  when  the  latter  is  ratified. 
Article  III.  —  The  present  treaty  must  be  submitted  to  the 
Council  of  the  League  of  Nations,  and  must  be  recognized  by  the 
Council,  acting  if  need  be  by  a  majority,  as  an  engagement 
which  is  consistent  with  the  Covenant  of  the  League.  It  will 
continue  in  force  until  on  the"  application  of  one  of  the  parties 
to  it  the  Council,  acting  if  need  be  by  a  majority,  agrees  that  the 
League  itself  affords  sufficient  protection. 

Article  IV.  - —  The  present  treaty  will  be  submitted  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  at  the  same  time  as  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles  is  submitted  to  the  Senate  for  its  advice  and  consent 
to  ratification.  It  will  be  submitted  before  ratification  to  the 
French  Chambers  for  approval.  The  ratification  thereof  will 
be  exchanged  on  the  deposit  of  ratifications  of  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles  at  Paris  or  as  soon  thereafter  as  shall  be  possible. 


430  APPENDIX   III 

In  faith  whereof  the  respective  plenipotentiaries,  to  wit:  On 
the  part  of  the  United  States  of  America,  Woodrow  Wilson, 
President,  and  Robert  Lansing,  Secretary  of  State,  of  the  United 
States ;  and  on  the  part  of  the  French  Republic,  Georges  Cle- 
menceau.  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers,  Minister  of  War 
and  Stephen  Pichon,  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  have  signed  the 
above  articles  both  in  the  English  and  French  languages,  and 
they  have  hereunto  affixed  their  seals. 

Done  in  duplicate  at  the  City  of  Versailles,  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  day  of  June,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  nineteen,  and  the  one  hundred  and  forty-third  of 
the  Independence  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

[Seal]        Woodrow  Wilson. 

[Seal]        Robert  Lansing. 

[Seal]        G.  Clemenceau. 

[Seal]        S.  PiCHON. 


SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.   General  Historical  Background 

Manuals  :  C.  J.  H.  Hayes,  A  Political  and  Social  History  of  Modern  Europe^ 

2  vols.  (1916) ;  L.  H.  Holt  and  A.  W.  Chilton,  The  History  of  Europe 

from  1862  to  igi4  (191 7);   J.  S.  Schapiro,  Modern  and  Contemporary 

History  (1918) ;   CD,  Hazen,  Fifty  Years  of  Europe  (1919) ;    E.  B. 

Krehbiel,  Nationalism,  War  and  Society  (19 16). 

Diplomatic  Histories:    F.  M.  Anderson  and  A.  S.  Hershey  (editors). 

Handbook  for  the  Diplomatic  History  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  1870- 

yL  igi4  (1918) ;   Charles  Seymour,  The  Diplomatic  Background  of  the  War 

vL    (1916) ;   W.  S.  Davis,  The  Roots  of  the  War  (1918) ;   Arthur  Bullard, 

The  Diplomacy  of  the  Great  War  (19 16),  a  survey  of  international  politics 

from  1878  to  1914 ;  W.  M.  FuUerton,  Problems  of  Power,  2d  ed.  (1915) ; 

H.  A.  Gibbons,  The  New  Map  of  Europe,  IQII-IQ14  (1914),  The  New 

>  Map  of  Africa,  igoo-igi6,  a  History  of  European  Colonial  Expansion 

^  and  Colonial  Diplomacy  (1916),  and  The  New  Map  of  Asia,  igoo-igig 

(1919) ;    A.  C.  Coolidge,  The  Origins  of  the  Triple  Alliance  (191 7) ; 

E.  J.  Dillon,  From  the  Triple  to  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  Why  Italy  went 
into  the  War  (1915) ;  B.  E,.  Schmitt,  England  and  Germany  (1916) ; 
Andre  Tardieu,  France  and  the  Alliances,  the  Struggle  for  the  Balance  of 
Power  (1908);  E.  D.  Morel,  Ten  Years  of  Secret  Diplomacy  (191 5); 
Gilbert  Murray,  The  Foreign  Policy  of  Sir  Edward  Grey  igo6-igi5 
(191 5);  Ernst  (Graf)  zu  Reventlow,  Deutschlands  Auswdrtige  Politik 
1888-igij  (1914). 

Germany  :  W.  H.  Dawson,  The  German  Empire  {i86y-igi4)  and  the  Unity 
Movement,  2  vols.  (1919) ;  R.  H.  Fife,  Jr.,  The  German  Empire  between 
Two  Wars,  a  Study  of  the  Political  and  Social  Development  of  the  Nation 
>  between  1871  and  igi4  (1916) ;  J.  Ellis  Barker,  Modern  Germany,  its 
Rise,  Growth,  Downfall,  and  Future  (1919) ;  C.  D.  Hazen,  Alsace-Lor- 
raine under  German  Rule  (191 7) ;  P.  E.  Lewin,  The  Germans  and  Africa 
(191 5),  and  The  German  Road  to  the  East,  an  account  of  the  ^^ Drang 
nach  Osten^'  and  of  Teutonic  Aims  in  the  Near  and  Middle  East  (191 7) ; 

F.  A.  J.  von  Bernhardi,  Germany  and  the  Next  War,  Eng.  trans,  by 
A.  H.  Powles  (1913). 

n.   General  Works  on  the  War   • 

Documents  :  A  vast  amount  of  material  has  been  published  by  the  Govern- 
ments of  the  several  belligerents,  both  diplomatic  and  mUitary ;  many 
documents  of  signal  importance  have  been  published  in  convenient 
form  by  the  American  Association  for  International  Conciliation  (New 
York),  by  the  World  Peace  Foundation  (Boston),  by  The  Nation  (New 
York),  and  by  The  New  Europe,  a  valuable  weekly  review  of  foreign 
politics   (191 7-1920);    Current  History,  a  monthly  magazine  issued 

431 


432  SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY 

since  19 14  by  The  New  York  Times,  is  a  store-house  of  documents, 
special  articles,  and  illustrations;  The  Times  Documentary  History  of 
the  War,  published  by  the  London  Times,  is  similarly  useful. 
Secondary  Worxs  :  John  Buchan,  Nelson's  History  of  the  War,  24  vols. 
(1915-1919) ;  F.  H.  Simonds,  History  of  the  World  War ;  Hilaire  Belloc, 
Elements  of  the  Great  War ;  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  A  History  of  the  Great 
War;  Mr.  Punch's  History  of  the  War  (1919) ;  Louis  Raemaeker,  Rae- 
maeker's  Cartoon  History  of  the  War;  F.  W.  T.  Lange  and  W.  T.  Berry, 
Books  on  the  Great  War,  an  annotated  bibliography. 

in.  Diplomacy  and  Apologetics  of  the  War 

Diplomacy:  J.  B.  Scott  (editor).  Diplomatic  Documents  relating  to  the  Out- 
break of  the  European  War,  2  vols.  (191 6);  E.  R.  O.  von  Mach,  Official 
Diplomatic  Documents  relating  to  the  Outbreak  of  the  European  War, 
with  photographic  reproductions  of  the  official  editions  of  the  documents 
published  by  the  Governments  of  Austria-Hungary,  Belgium,  France, 
Germany,  Great  Britain,  Russia,  and  Serbia  (1916) ;  F.  Seymour  Cocks, 
The  Secret  Treaties;  O.  P.  Chit  wood,  The  Immediate  Causes  of  the  Great 
War  (191 7) ;  J.  W.  Headlam,  The  History  of  Twelve  Days,  July  24th 
to  August  4th,  IQ14  (191 5) ;  J.  W.  Headlam,  The  German  Chancellor 
and  the  Outbreak  of  War  (191 7) ;  E.  C.  StoweU,  The  Diplomacy  of  the 
War  of  1 91 4  (191 5) ;   Munroe  Smith,  Militarism  and  Statecraft  (19 18). 

Apologetics  :  E.  R.  Bevan,  Method  in  the  Madness,  a  fresh  consideration 
of  the  case  between  Germany  and  Ourselves  (19 17);  Yves  Guyot,  The 
Causes  and  Consequences  of  the  War,  Eng.  trans,  by  F.  A.  Holt  (1916) ; 
G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  The  European  Anarchy  (1916) ;  J.  M.  Beck, 
The  Evidence  in  the  Case  (1914) ;  E.  J.  Dillon,  A  Scrap  of  Paper  (1914) ; 
/  Accuse,  by  a  German,  Eng.  trans,  by  Alexander  Gray  (191 5) ;  Modern 
Germany  in  relation  to  the  Great  War,  by  various  German  writers,  no- 
tably Professors  Meinecke,  Oncken,  Schumacher,  and  Erich  Marcks, 
trans,  by  W.  W.  Whitelock  (1916) ;  H.  T.  W.  Frobenius,  The  German 
Empire's  Hour  of  Destiny  (191 4);  E.  R.  O.  von  Mach,  What  Germany 
Wants  (1914)  and  Germany's  Point  of  View  (191 5);  Paul  Rohrbach, 
/  Germany's  Isolation,  an  Exposition  of  the  Economic  Causes  of  the  War, 
Eng.  trans,  by  P.  H.  Phillipson  (191 5);  Friedrich  Naumann,  Central 
^  Europe,  Eng.  trans,  by  Christabel  M.  Meredith  (191 7) ;  Ernst  (Graf) 
zu  Reventlow,  The  Vampire  of  the  Continent,  Eng.  trans,  by  G.  C. 
Hill  (1916) ;  G.  M.  C.  Brandes,  The  World  at  War,  Eng.  trans,  by 
Catherine  D.  Groth  (191 7). 

Criticism  and  Comment  :  J.  W.  Gerard,  My  Four  Years  in  Germany  (191 7), 
and  Face  to  Face  with  Kaiserism  (1918) ;  D.  J.  Hill,  Impressions  of  the 
Kaiser  (1918) ;  M.  F.  Egan,  Ten  Years  near  the  German  Frontier  (1919) ; 
Henry  Morgenthau,  Ambassador  Morgenthau's  Story  (1918) ;  Henry 
van  Dyke,  Fighting  for  Peace  (191 7);  Emile  Priim,  Pan-Germanism 
versus  Christendom,  the  Conversion  of  a  Neutral  (191 7) ;  T.  Tittoni, 
Who  is  Responsible  for  the  War,  the  Verdict  of  History  (191 7) ;  Count 
Julius  Andrassy,  Whose  Sin  is  the  World  War  (191 5) ;  Christian  Gauss, 
The  German  Emperor  as  Shown  in  his  Public  Utterances  (191 5);  S. 
Grumbach,  Germany's  Annexationist  Aims,  Eng.  trans,  by  J.  E.  Barker 
(191 7) ;  J.  P.  Bang,  Hurrah  and  Hallelujah,  the  Teaching  of  Germany's 
Poets,  Prophets,  Professors  and  Preachers,  Eng.  trans,  by  Jessie  Brochner 


SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY  433 

(191 7) ;  William  Archer,  Gems  {?)  of  German  Thought  (191 7) ;  Edwyn 
Bevan,  German  Social  Democracy  during  the  War  (1919) ;  H.  N.  Brails- 
ford,  Across  the  Blockade  (1919) ;  T.  L.  Stoddard,  Present  Day  Eur  ope  j 
its  National  States  of  Mind  (191 7). 


IV.   Special  Works  on  Particular  Countries 

Belgium  :  Brand  Whitlock,  Belgium,  a  Personal  Narrative,  2  vols.  (1919) ; 
Hugh  Gibson,  A  Journal  from  our  Legation  in  Belgium  (191 7);  Car- 
dinal Mercier,  Pastorals,  Letters,  Allocutions  igi4-igi7,  with  a  bio- 
graphical sketch  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Stillemans  (191 7) ;  Leon  van  der  Essen, 
The  Invasion  and  the  War  in  Belgium,  with  a  Sketch  of  the  Diplomatic 
Negotiations  preceding  the  Conflict  (191 7) ;  C.  P.  Sanger  and  H.  T.  J. 
Norton,  England's  Guarantee  to  Belgium  and  Luxemburg,  with  the  full 
text  of  the  treaties  (191 5);  Reports  on  the  Violations  of  the  Rights  of 
Nations  and  of  the  Laws  and  Customs  of  War  in  Belgium,  by  a  Com- 
mission appointed  by  the  Belgian  Government,  2  vols.  (191 7) ;  Charles 
De  Visscher,  Belgium's  Case,  a  Juridical  Enquiry,  Eng.  trans,  by  E. 
F.  Jourdain  (1916) ;  K.  A.  Fuehr,  The  Neutrality  of  Belgium,  a  Study 
of  the  Belgian  Case  under  its  aspects  in  Political  History  and  International 
Law  (1915),  the  German  case;  Erich  Erichsen,  Forced  to  Fight,  the 
Tale  of  a  Schleswig  Dane  (191 7) ;  A.  J.  Toynbee,  The  German  Terror  in 
Belgium,  an  Historical  Record  (191 7) ;  Charles  Sarolea,  How  Belgium 
Saved  Europe  (1915) ;  Emile  Waxweiler,  Belgium,  Neutral  and  Loyal ^ 
the  War  of  191 4  (1915). 

Austria-Hungary  :  H.  W.  Steed,  The  Hapsburg  Monarchy  (1913) ;  R.  W. 
Seton- Watson,  Racial  Problems  in  Hungary  (1908),  The  South  Slav 
Question  and  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  (191 1),  Corruption  and  Reform  in 
Hungary  (191 1),  German,  Slav,  and  Magyar,  a  Study  in  the  Origins  of 
the  Great  War  (1916) ;  E.  Ludwig,  Austria-Hungary  and  the  War  (19 16). 

The  Near  East  :  N.  E.  and  C.  R.  Buxton,  The  War  and  the  Balkans  (191 5)  ; 
L.  H.  Courtney,  ist  Baron  Courtney,  Nationalism  and  War  in  the  Near 
/  East  (1916) ;  J.  A,  R.  Marriott,  The  Eastern  Question,  an  Historical 
Study  in  European  Diplomacy  (191 7) ;  Marion  I.  Newbigin,  Geographical 
Aspects  of  Balkan  Problems  in  relation  to  the  Great  European  War  (191 5) ; 
Fortier  Jones,  With  Serbia  into  Exile,  an  American's  Adventures  with 
the  Army  that  Can  Not  Die  (1916) ;  V.  R.  Savic,  Southeastern  Europe 
(1918) ;  Greece  in  her  True  Light,  her  position  in  the  world-wide  war  as 
expounded  by.  El.  K.  Venizelos,  her  greatest  statesman,  in  a  series  of  official 
documents,  trans,  by  S.  A.  Xanthaky  and  N.  G.  Sakellarios  (1916) ;  His- 
toricus  (pseud.),  Bulgaria  and  her  Neighbors  (191 7) ;  G.  J.  Shaw-Lefevre, 
ist  Baron  Eversley,  The  Turkish  Empire,  its  Growth  and  Decay  (191 7)  ; 
Henry  Morgenthau,  Ambassador  Morgenthau's  Story  (191 8) ;  Andr6 
Cheradame,  The  Pan-German  Plot  Unmasked  (191 7);  C.  Snouck, 
The  Revolt  in  Arabia  (19 17). 
>J[  Armenia  :  Viscount  Bryce,  Treatment  of  Armenians  in  the  Ottoman  Empire 
1915-1916,  Documents  presented  to  Viscount  Grey  (191 7) ;  H.  A.  Gibbons, 
The  Blackest  Page  of  Modern  History  (1916) ;  A.  J.  Toynbee,  The  Ar- 
menian Atrocities,  the  Murder  of  a  Nation  (1916) ;  Abraham  Yohannan, 
The  Death  of  a  Nation,  or  the  Ever  Persecuted  Nestorians  or  Assyrian 
Christians  (19 16). 

2F 


434  SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Zionism:  Paul  Goodman  and  A.  D.  Lewis  (editors),  Zionism,  Problems  and 
Views  (1917). 

East-Central  Europe  :  I.  D.  Levine,  The  Resurrected  Nations,  a  Popular 
History  (igig) ;  Ralph  Butler,  The  New  Eastern  Europe  (1919) ;  Ste- 
phan  Rudnicki,  The  Ukraine  (191 5) ;    C.  Rivas,  La  Lithuanie  sous  la 

^  joug  allemande  (1918) ;  H.  A.  Gibbons,  The  Reconstruction  of  Poland  and 
the  Near  East,  Problems  of  Peace  (191 7) ;  E,  H.  Lewinski-Corwin,  A  Po- 
litical History  of  Poland  (191 7) ;  F.  E.  Whitton,  A  History  of  Poland 
(1918). 

Russia  :  H.  W.  Williams,  Russia  of  the  Russians  (1914) ;  Gregor  Alexinsky, 
Modern  Russia  (19 14),  Russia  and  the  Great  War  (191 5),  and  Russia 
and  Europe  (191 7) ;  Leo  Wiener,  An  Interpretation  of  the  Russian  People 
(191 5);  R,  W.  Child,  Potential  Russia  (1916) ;  I.  F.  Marcosson,  The 
Rebirth  of  Russia  (191 7) ;  I.  D.  Levine,  The  Russian  Revolution  (191 7) ; 
Gen.  Basil  Gourko,  War  and  Revolution  in  Russia,  igi4-igiy  (1919) ; 
A.  F.  Kerensky,  The  Prelude  to  Bolshevism  (1919) ;  A.  S,  Rappoport, 
Pioneers  of  the  Russian  Revolution  (1919) ;  John  Reed,  Ten  Days  that 
Shook  the  World  (19 19) ;    Emile  Vandervelde,   Three  Aspects  of  the 

sj  Russian  Revolution  (1919) ;  John  Spargo,  Bolshevism  versus  Democracy 
(1919) ;  Arthur  Ransome,  Russia  in  191 9;  A.  R.  Williams,  Arthur 
Ransome,  and  Col.  Raymond  Robins,  Lenin,  the  Man  and  his  Work 
(1919) ;  J.  V.  Bubnoff,  The  Cooperative  Movement  in  Russia,  its  history, 
significance,  and  character  (191 7). 

The  Far  East  :  K.  S.  Latourette,  The  Development  of  China  (191 7) ;  S.  K. 
X  Hornbeck,  Contemporary  Politics  in  the  Far  East  (1916) ;  Jefferson 
Jones,  The  Fall  of  Tsingtau,  a  Study  of  Japan's  Ambitions  in  China 
(191 5) ;  G.  H.  Blakeslee  (editor),  Japan  and  Japanese- American  Rela- 
tions (191 2) ;  T.  F.  F.  Millard,  Our  Eastern  Question,  America's  Con- 
tact with  the  Orient  and  the  Trend  of  Relations  with  China  and  Japan 
(19 1 6),  and  Democracy  and  the  Eastern  Question  (1919) ;  Naoichi 
Masaoka  (editor),  Japan  to  America,  a  symposium  of  papers  by  political 
leaders  and  representative  citizens  of  Japan  and  on  the  relations  between 
Japan  and  the  United  States  (191 5) ;  B.  L.  Putnam  Weale,  The  Fight 
for  the  Republic  in  China  (191 7),  and  The  Truth  about  China  and  Japan 
(1919). 

V.   Great  Britain  and  the  War 

Britain  and  the  Empire  :  David  Lloyd  George,  Through  Terror  to  Triumph, 
speeches  and  pronouncements,  arranged  by  F.  L.  Stevenson(i9i5) ;  W.  S. 
M.  Knight,  A  History  of  Great  Britain  during  the  Great  War  (1916) ; 
Andre  Chevrillon,  England  and  the  War  1914-1915,  with  a  preface  by 
Rudyard  Kipling  (191 7) ;  J.  C.  Smuts,  War-Time  Speeches,  a  compila- 
tion of  public  utterances  in  Great  Britain  (191 7) ;  G.  L.  Beer,  The  English- 
speaking  Peoples,  their  Future  Relations  and  Joint  International  Obli- 
gations (1917) ;  Sinclair  Kennedy,  The  Pan- Angles,  a  Consideration  of 
the  Federation  of  the  Seven  English-speaking  Nations  (1914). 

Ireland:  W.  B.  Wells  and  N.  Marlow,  The  History  of  the  Irish  Rebellion 
of  igi6  (1917) ;  F,  P.  Jones,  History  of  the  Sinn  Fein  Movement  and  the 
Irish  Rebellion  of  1916  (191 7) ;  G.  W.  Russell  (pseud.,  A.  E.),  National 
Being,  Some  Thoughts  on  an  Irish  Policy  (1916) ;  L.  R.  Morris,  The 
Celtic  Dawn,  a  Survey  of  the  Renascence  in  Ireland  1889-1916  (191 7) ; 
Shane  Leslie,  The  Celt  and  the  World,  a  Study  of  the  Relation  of  Celt 


SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY  435 

and  Teuton  in  History  (1917) ;  Francis  Hackett,  Ireland,  a  Study  in 
Nationalism  (1918) ;  E.  R.  Turner,  Ireland  and  England  (191 9) ;  Lord 
Ernest  William  Hamilton,  The  Said  oj  Ulster  (191 7). 

VI.  The  United  States  and  the  War 

General  Narrative:  J.  B.  McMaster,  The  United  States  in  the  World 
y  War,  2  vols.  (1918-1919) ;  J.  S.  Bassett,  Our  War  with  Germany,  a 
History  (1919) ;  Florence  F.  Kelly,  What  America  Did  (1919) ;  Colonel 
De  Chambrun  and  Captain  De  Marenches,  The  American  Army  in  the 
European  Conflict  (1919) ;  L.  P.  Ayres,  The  War  with  Germany,  a 
statistical  summary,  2d  ed.  (1920). 

President  Wilson  :  J.  B.  Scott  (editor),  President  Wilson's  Foreign  Policy, 
messages,  addresses,  papers  (1918) ;  William  Archer,  The  Peace  Presi- 
dent, a  brief  appreciation  of  Woodrow  Wilson  (1919) ;  Daniel  Halevy, 
President  Wilson  (1919). 

Miscellaneous  :  W.  F.  Willoughby,  Government  Organization  in  War 
Time  and  After,  a  Survey  of  the  Federal  Civil  Agencies  created  for  the 
Prosecution  of  the  War  (1919) ;  Lt.-Col.  J.  C.  Wise,  The  Turn  of  the 
Tide,  Operations  of  American  Troops  (1919) ;  Committee  on  Public 
Information,  War  Information  Series;  Ida  C.  Clarke,  American  Women 
and  the  World  War  (19 18). 

Vn.  Detailed  Military  and  Naval  Operations 

Military:  In  addition  to  the  General  Works  on  the  War,  listed  above, 
there  are  innumerable  accounts  of  various  campaigns.  Chief  among 
these  are  official  reports  of  the  commanding  generals  and  narratives  by 
press  correspondents  and  reminiscences  of  soldiers  engaged.  The 
books  of  Philip  Gibbs  are  probably  the  most  important  journalistic 
narratives.  Special  mention  should  be  made  of  "1914'^ ;  the  Memoirs 
of  Field  Marshal  Viscount  French  (1914) ;  Maj.  Gen.  Sir  F.  Maurice, 
The  Last  Four  Months,  How  the  War  Was  Won  (1919) ;  E.  A.  Powell, 
Italy  at  War  (191 7) ;  G.  Gordon-Smith,  Through  the  Serbian  Campaign 
(1916) ;  John  Masefield,  Gallipoli  (1916) ;  John  Reed,  The  War  in 
Eastern  Europe  (1916) ;  Stanley  Washburn,  The  Russian  Campaign 
(191 5) ;  A.  T.  Clark,  To  Bagdad  with  the  British  (191 7) ;  J.  H.  Morgan 
(translator).  The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff,  being  "The 
Usages  of  War  on  Land''  issued  by  the  Great  General  Stafl  of  the  German 
Army  (191 5);  Gen.  Erich  von  Ludendorff,  Ludendorffs  Own  Story, 
August,  1914,  to  November,  1918,  2  vols.  (1920) ;  Rajonond  Recouly, 
A  Life  of  Marshal  Foch  (1919) ;  H.  A.  Atteridge,  Marshal  Ferdinand 
Foch  (1919) ;  S.  Lauzanne,  Fighting  France  (1918) ;  Mario  Alberti, 
Italy's  Great  War  (1918) ;  Field  Marshal  Sir  Douglas  Haig,  Despatches, 
December,  191 5- April,  191 9  (1920). 
^  Naval:  Admiral  Viscount  Jellicoe  of  Scapa,  The  Grand  Fleet,  1914-1916 
(1919) ;  A.  S.  Hurd  and  H.  H.  Bashford,  The  Heroic  Record  of  the  British 
Navy,  a  Short  History  of  the  Naval  War,  1914-1918  (1919) ;  Grand  Ad- 
/     miral  von  Tirpitz,  My  Memoirs,  2  vols.  (19 19). 

Miscellaneous  :  C.  R.  Gibson,  War  Inventions  and  How  They  Were  In- 
vented (191 7) ;  I.  F.  Marcosson,  The  Business  of  War  (1918) ;  P.  Azan, 
The  Warfare  of  To-day  (1918) ;  W.  J.  Abbot,  Aircraft  and  Submarines 


436  SELECT   BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(191 8) ;  E.  Middleton,  Aircraft  of  To-day  and  of  the  Future  (1918) ; 
H.  P.  Davison,  The  American  Red  Cross  in  the  Great  War  (1919) ;  Evan- 
geline C.  Booth  and  Grace  L.  Lutz,  The  War  Romance  of  the  Salvation 
Army  (1919) ;  W.  L.  Mallaber,  Medical  History  of  the  Great  War  (1916) ; 
Romain  Rolland,  Above  the  Battle  (1916) ;  H.  G.  Wells,  Mr.  Britling 
Sees  it  Through  (1916) ;  Henri  Barbusse,  Under  Fire  (191 7);  Bruce 
Bairnsfather,  Bullets  and  Billets  (191 7). 

VIII.  The  League  of  Nations  and  the  Peace 

Peace  Proposals  :  R.  S.  Bourne  (editor),  Towards  an  Enduring  Peace, 
a  Symposium  of  Peace  Proposals  and  Programs,  IQ14-IQ16  (1916) ; 
Documents  and  Statements  relating  to  Peace  Proposals  and  War  Aims, 
December,  IQ16,  to  November,  igi8  (1919). 

The  League  of  Nations:  S.  P.  Duggan  (editor),  The  League  of  Nations, 
the  Principle  and  the  Practice  (1919) ;  Mathias  Erzberger,  The  League 
of  Nations,  the  Way  to  the  World's  Peace,  Eng.  trans,  by  Bernard  Miall 
(1919) ;  D.  S.  Morrow,  The  Society  of  Free  States  (1919) ;  T.  J.  Law- 
rence, The  Society  of  Nations  (1919) ;  D.  J.  Hill,  The  Rebuilding  of 
Europe  (191 7);  J.  A.  Hobson,  Towards  International  Government 
(191 5) ;  J.  S.  Bassett,  The  Lost  Fruits  of  Waterloo  (1918) ;  F.  B,  Sayre, 
Experiments  in  International  Administration  (1919). 
f  The  Peace  Congress  :  Walter  Lippmann,  The  Political  Scene  (1919) ; 
H.  M.  Hyndman,  Clemenceau,  the  Man  and  his  Time  (1919) ;  J.  M. 
Keynes,  The  Economic  Consequences  of  the  Peace  (1920) ;  E.  J.  Dillon, 
The  Inside  Story  of  the  Peace  Conference  (1920). 

Politics  and  Economics  :  F.  A.  Ogg  and  C.  A.  Beard,  National  Govern- 
ments and  the  World  War  (1919) ;  J.  L.  Laughlin,  Credit  of  the  Nations 
(1918) ;  E.  J.  Clsipp,  Economic  Aspects  of  the  War  (1915) ;  F.  W.  Hirst, 
The  Political  Economy  of  War  (191 5) ;  A.  D.  Noyes,  Financial  Chapters 
on  the  War  (1916) ;  H.  L.  Gray,  War-Time  Control  of  Industry  (1918) ; 
t^  E.  L.  Bogart,  Direct  and  Indirect  Costs  of  the  Great  World  War  (1918) ; 
D.  C.  McMurtrie,  The  Disabled  Soldier  (1919) ;  P.  W.  Kellogg  and  A. 
H.  Gleason,  British  Labor  and  the  War  (1919) ;  F.  A.  Cleveland  and 
Joseph  Schafer  (editors),  Democracy  in  Reconstruction  (1920);  E,  M. 
Friedman  (editor),  American  Problems  of  Reconstruction  (1919) ;  Ber- 
trand  Russell,  Proposed  Roads  to  Freedom,  —  Socialism,  Anarchism, 
and  Syndicalism  (191 9). 


INDEX 


Abbas  II.,  72 

Abruzzi,  Dukp  of  the,  95 

Acre,  captured,  347 

Action  Liberale,  in  France,  post-war,  407 

Acts,  war  measure  enacted  by  Congress, 
222 

Adalia,  Italian  mandatary,  384;  Italy's 
hold  on,  400 

Adrianople,  and  Bulgaria,  84,  87 

Adriatic  islands,  385-386 

.^gean  Sea,  coasts  and  islands,  87,  91,  366, 
38s 

Africa,  German  colonies,  67-69;  colonies, 
Libya,  92;  and  Gt.  Brit.,  399;  manda- 
taries, 401,  421 

Africa,  German  East,  cession  to  Gt.  Brit., 

375 

Africa,  German  Southwest,  cession  to 
British  Union  of  South  Africa,  375 

Africa,  South,  loyalty,  66;  army,  losses, 
3QO 

Agadir,  12 

Agram,  riots,  349;  Pan-Slavic  Congress, 
350;  Jugoslav  Convention,  354 

Agriculture,  Germany,  9j  France,  393 
{See  also  Land) 

Ailette  River,  277 

Air  raid  victims,  390 

Airplanes,  24,  180;  •  German  raids,  74; 
lack  of,  lis;  Allied,  118,  177;  hydro- 
planes, 221;  Aviation  act,  222;  Ger- 
man, 324;  military  and  naval  aviation 
to  be  abandoned  by  Germany,  376; 
development  of,  408-409 

Aisne,  33;  Battle  of  the,  34,  292,  313-316; 
2d  Battle  of  the,  275-278;  offensive, 
281 ;  Drive,  314-316 

Albania,  cession  to  Italy,  72,  87,  91,  93, 
386;  cession  to  Greece,  87,  366,  385; 
conquest  of,  135-137;  Italian  protecto- 
rate, 253,  385  ;  nationalism,  397 ;  Italy's 
hold  on,  400 

Albert,  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg,  27-29,  31, 
36,  1 8s 

Albert,  King  of  Belgium,  329,  332,  358 

Albert  (Town)  captured,  307 

Alcoholic  beverages,  prohibition  of,  405 

Aleppo,  284;  captured,  347;  under  the 
Arabs  of  Hedjaz,  384 

Alexander,  Prince,  of  Greece,  285,  354 


Alexandra  Feodorovna,  Tsarina,  225-226 

Alexeiev,  General,  51,  m,  229,  242,  337 

Algeria,  71 

All-Russian,  Union  of  Zemstvos,  194; 
Extraordinary  Commission,  249;  gov- 
ernment, 341 

AUenby,  Edmund,  286-287,  344,  346-347 

Allenstein,  42 

Alliances,  Austria  and  Germany,  6,  317; 
France  and  Russia,  6  ;  England  and  Japan, 
63;  Russia  and  Gt.  Brit.,  69;  Entente 
and  Italy,  72-73;  Triple  Alliance,  90; 
France,  U.  S.,  and  Gt.  Brit.,  370;  Japan 
and  the  Entente,  370.  {See  also  En- 
tangling alliances,  Entente.) 

Allied  armies,  battle-line,  35-37,  114,  176- 
177,  183,  305-306,  326,  328-329;  332, 
345 ;  losses,  89,  388-390 ;  lacking  am- 
munition, artillery  and  airplanes,  115 ; 
nadir  of  defeat,  1 21-124;  munitions, 
168;  cooperation,  277;  plans,  278-321- 
322;  armed  intervention  in  Russia,  338- 
342;  Army  of  the  East,  344;  occupation 
of  the  Rhine  and  bridgeheads,  357,  377; 
education,  among  troops  at  the  front, 
410 

Allied  Conference,  Paris,  272;  Supreme 
Council,  raises  economic  blockade  against 
Bolsheviki,  388 

Allies,  optimism,  80-83 ;  attempt  to  domi- 
nate the  Near  East,  80-98 ;  naval  suprem- 
acy, domestic  disturbances,  diplomacy, 
etc.,  81-83 ;  attack  on  the  Dardanelles, 
83-89;  fail  to  relieve  Russia,  11 2-1 20; 
decline  of  prestige,  1 21-124;  counting 
on  Greek  aid,  129;  fail  to  relieve  Serbia, 
129-134;  troops  ip  Salonica,  130;  fail 
to  obtain  a  decision  in  1916,  168-200; 
coordination  of  plans,  168-170;  Drives, 
Somme,  Isonzo,  Sereth,  171-181;  and 
the  German  Peace,  198-200;  coopera- 
tion, 202-203 ;  reply  to  President  Wil- 
son's note  on  war-aims,  209-210;  and 
the  Russian  Revolution,  236-237;  war- 
aims,  253,  272,  297-298;  pave  the  way  for 
ultimate  victory,  261-298;  plans  and 
prospects  for  1917,  261-272;  resume  of 
membership,  270-271;  Supreme  War 
Council,  271-272;  lesson  of  the  Hinden- 
burg  Line,  272-281 ;    recovery  of  prestige 


437 


438 


INDEX 


in  the  Near  East,  281-287;  pessimism, 
287;  seeming  obstacles  to  victory,  287- 
2g8;  triumph,  and  Central  Europe 
revolts,  326-364;  victories  in  the  West, 
326-334;  intervention  in  Russia,  334- 
342 ;  triumph  in  the  Near  East,  and  sur- 
render of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey,  342- 
348;  treaty  with  Austria,  386-387. 
(See  also  headings  under  Inter- Allied.) 

Alsace-Lorraine,  34,  148-149,  254,  397; 
invasion  of,  28-29;  and  Austria,  266; 
plebiscite,  290;  and  Pope  Benedict, 
291 ;  to  be  righted,  298 ;  autonomy, 
331;  joyous  greetings  to  the  AlUes,  358; 
cession  to  France,  366,  374 

American  Expeditionary  Force,  219,  261, 
329.     {See  also  U.  S.  army.) 

American  railroad  engineers,  and  the  Trans- 
Siberian  railway,  340-341 

American  Red  Cross,  report  on  food,  393 

Americans  killed  at  sea,  390 

Amerongen,  refuge  of  William  II,  361-362 

Amiens,  35 ;  attacked,  306 

Ammonite,  in  explosive  mines,  278 

Ammunition.     {See  Munitions) 

Anarchic  state  system  in  Germany,  398 

Anarchy,  in  commerce,  1-7;  international, 
1-7,  17,  201-203,  211,  224,  270,  365,  377- 

379,  411;  in  Russia,  231 
Anatolia,  German  influence,  71 
Anatolian  railway,  69 

Ancre  valley,  273 

Andrassy,  Julius,  265,  352 

Anglo-American  sea  patrol,  and  the  sub- 
marines, 322 

Anglo-French  War  Council,  169 

Anglophobia,  U.  S.,  204 

Annexations,  289 

An,nunzio,  Gabriele  d',  385 

Antwerp,  28;  Fall  of,  35;  raided,  74; 
entered  by  King  Albert,  358 

Anzacs,  88 

Arabia,  253 

Arabs  of  Hedjaz.     {See  Hedjaz) 

Arbitration,  international,  204;  and  a 
negotiated  peace,  288;  compulsory,  290; 
League  of  Nations,  379-380,  416-417  . 

Archangel,  captured,  340 

Ardennes,  destruction  of,  38 ;  Forest  of,  29 

Argentina,  and  Germany,  271 

Argonne,  32-33,  ii7 

Arizona,  offered  as  bribe  to  Mexico,  216 

Armament,    limitation    of,    211,    290,    298, 

380,  415  ;  disarmament,  Bolshevist  policy, 
254;  disarmament,  Germany,  398 

Armed  force,  German,  405 
Armed       neutrality.         {See      Neutrality, 
armed) 


Armenia,  136-137;  in  Russian  hands, 
139-140;  self-determination,  251;  auton- 
omy, 254 ;  and  Mittel-Europa,  335 ; 
frontiers,  371;  a  free  republic,  384; 
food  supply,  393 ;   nationahsm,  397 

Armenia,  Old,  captured,  282 

Armenians,  massacred  or  starved,  139,  390 

Armentieres,  captured,  308 

Armistice,  of  Nov.  11,  1918,  340,  357;  for 
Bulgaria,  345;  for  Turkey,  347-348; 
for  Austria-Hungary,  353 

Arms.     {See  Munitions) 

Armies.  {See  Allied  armies,  Austrian  army, 
French  army,  etc.) 

Army,  of  the  East,  344 ;  life,  educational 
value  of,  409;  surgery,  development  of, 
409 

Arnim,  Gen.  Sixt  von,  303,  307-308 

Arras,  35-36;   Battle  of,  275;  offensive,  280 

Arsiero,  157;   captured,  174 

Art,  works,  to  be  returned  by  Germany, 
377 

Artillery,  British  and  French,  178;  Battle 
of  Flanders,  278-280;  German,  304; 
development  of,  408.  {See  also  Guns; 
Machine  guns) 

Artois,  Allied  attack,  118 

Asia  Minor,  136;  and  Greece,  73;  and 
Italy,  87;  coasts  of,  Greek  mandatary, 
384 

Asiago,  captured,  157,  174;  Plateau,  296 

Asiatic  Turkey,  136 

Asolone,  Monte,  captured,  296 

Asquith,  Premier,  19,  78,  83,  159,  193,  197 

Assassination  of  Archduke  Francis  Ferdi- 
nand, 13-14,  374 

Assembly  of  Czechs  and  Jugoslavs  at  Prague, 
350-351 

Atrocities    (German),    at    Sommeilles,    38 
frightfulness,  etc.,  74;    chlorine  gas,  117 
deplored    by    Pope    Benedict,     197-198 
devastation,    274;     deportation    of    Bel- 
gians and  French,  144-145 

Atrocities  (Turkish),  Armenian  massacres, 
139 ;   in  the  Caucasus,  335 

Auberive,  captured,  321 

Auffenburg,  General  von,  44-45 

Australasian  troops,  at  GallipoU,  122 

Austraha,  loyalty,  66,  68;  territorial  de- 
mands, 371 ;   army,  losses,  390 

Austria,  alliance  with  Germany  (1879),  6; 
Reichsrat,  264-265 ;  proclaimed  a  re- 
public, 356;  treaty  with  the  Allies,  Sept. 
10,  1919,  383,  386-387;  public  debt, 
391-392 ;   nationahsm,  397 

Austria-Hungary,  Dual  Monarchy,  14- 
20;  and  Gahcia,  43,  and  Serbia,  55-57; 
and  Italy,  57;    treaty  with  Bulgaria,  84; 


INDEX 


439 


Triple  Alliance,  go;  and  the  Irredenta, 
Qi ;  recovers  Galicia,  99-102 ;  peace  with 
Finland,  259;  internal  disturbances, 
263,  300,  317,  319;  and  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, 266;  autonomy  of  peoples,  298; 
alliance  with  Germany,  317;  collapses, 
348-356;  evacuation  of  conquered  terri- 
tories, 353;  navy,  surrender,  353;  dis- 
rupted, 396-397 

Austro-German  trade  to  Odessa,  259 

Austro-Hungarian  army,  organization,  23- 
24;  defeated,  45-46;  counter-offensive, 
47;  losses,  56-57,  174,  176,  319,  352,  389; 
fraternization  with  Italian  troops,  294; 
battle-line,  318;  plans,  318;  mutinies, 
349;  demobilization,  353 

Autocracy,  404;  in  Russia,  225-233,  237- 
238,  262,  270 

Automobiles,  24 

Averescu,  General,  188-189 

Aviation,  act,  222;  military  and  naval 
aviation  to  be  abandoned  by  Germany, 
376.  {See  also  Airplanes;  Balloons; 
Dirigibles) 

Avksentiev,  Nicholas,  341 

Avlona,  91-93.  135-136 

Avocourt  Wood,  captured,  277 

Aziziyeh,  captured,  283 

Babuna  Pass,  1 29 ;   captured,  345 

Bagdad,  137;  Bagdad  railway,  69,  83,  136, 
139;  Berlin-to-Bagdad  project,  '72,  142, 
282,  346-347;  saved  to  the  Turks,  142; 
captured,  283 ;  Bagdad-Samara  railway, 
284 

Bainsizza  Plateau,  captured,  294-295 

Baku,  and  Russia,  341 

Balance  of  power,  5-6,  202,  396 

Balfour,  Arthur  J.,  193,  220,  368 

Balkan  States,  12-20;  war  of  191 2-13,  70; 
disintegration  of,  72-73;  League  of  191 2, 
73 ;  and  Allied  diplomacy,  82 ;  and  the 
Entente,  84 ;  domination  of,  89 ;  and  the 
Triple  Alliance,  90;  trade  routes  to  Ger- 
many, 282;  relations  to  be  adjusted,  298; 
Balkanization  of  Central  Europe,  398 

Balloons,  221 

Baltic  Sea,  railroads  to  Bagdad,  282;  Ger- 
man forts  on,  377 

Baltic  states,  food  supply,  392 

Banat  of  Temesvar,  rival  claimants  for, 
354-355  ;  partition  of,  384 

Bankers,  and.  a  negotiated  peace,  288; 
secret  conferences,  289 ;  post-war,  406 

Bapaume,  177-179;  captured,  272-273,  306, 
326 

Barleux,  captured,  306 

Barrage,  creeping,  323 


Basra,  captured,  72 

Batocki,  Herr  von,  170 

Bauer,  Gustav  Adolf,  331,  372 

Bavaria,  a  republic,  360 ;  civil  war,  363 

Beatty,  Vice- Admiral  Sir  David,  62,  165, 
359 

Beersheba,  captured,  286 

Beirut,  captured,  347 

Beisan,  captured,  347 

Bela  Kun,  384 

Belfort,  31,  150 

Belgian  army,  25 ;  offensives  from  Malines 
and  Antwerp,  35  ;  losses,  389 

Belgian  commission  to  the  U.  S.,  39 

Belgians,  butchered,  390 

Belgium,  neutrality,  19;  invasion  of,  24- 
30;  situation,  close  of  1914,  37;  relief 
work  in,  39;  deportations,  144-145; 
195;  restoration,  254,  298,  331;  van- 
quished, 300;  special  convention  with 
Holland,  385 ;  damage  and  destruction, 
394 ;  electoral  reforms,  404 

Belgrade,  captured,  57,  127,  346;  railroads 
to  Berlin,  282 

Bell,  Johannes,  374 

Belleau  Wood,  316,  322 

Below,  Gen.  Fritz  von,  303,  314,  316,  320 

Below,  Gen.  Otto  von,  303-306 

Benedict  XV,  Pope,  197-198,  290-291,  331, 
410 

Bentinck,  Count  Goddard,  361 

Berchtold,  Count,  47 

Berlin,  and  the  Near  East,  134,  282 ;  revo- 
lution, 361-363 

Berlin-to-Bagdad  project.     {See  Bagdad) 

Bernhardi,  396 

Bernstein,  Eduard,  363 

Bernstorff,  Count,  207,  215 

Berthelot,  General,  329 

Beseler,  Gov.-Gen.  von,  196 

Bessarabia,  123,  182,  191,  259 

Bethmann-HoUweg,  Chancellor  von,  19, 
93,  149,  164,  166-167,  213,  266-267, 
288-289 

Beyers,  Gen.,  66-67 

Big  Three,  370 

Bikaner,  Maharajah  of,  368 

Birth-rate,  decUne,  391 

Bismarck,  8-9,  360,  368 

Bismarck  Archipelago,  67 

Bissolati,  Leonida,  371 

Bitlis,  captured,  140;  abandoned  by  the 
Russians,  142 

Black  Sea,  and  Mittel-Europa,  335,  343 

Blacklist  of  neutral  pro-German  firms, 
170 

Bliss,  Tasker,  368 

Bloc,  in  the  Reichstag,  267-269,  363,  373 


440 


INDEX 


Blockade,  against  German  trade,  170; 
foodstuffs,  196-197;  by  German  sub- 
marines, 214,  219;  removal  of  economic 
barriers,  298;  economic,  against  Ger- 
many, 357;  general,  360;  against  the 
Bolsheviki,  360,  388 

Bliicher  (Cruiser),  62 

Boehm-Ermolli,  General,  47,  loo-ioi,  242, 
303,  314,  320-322 

Boers,  66-67 

Bohemia,  martial  law,  351;  protection  for 
German  inhabitants  of,  386 

Bojadiev,  General.  127 

Bolivia,  severs  relations  with  Germany, 
218,  271,  388 

Bolo  Pasha,  292-293 

Bolsheviki,  239-241,  244,  247;  policy  of, 
248;  constitution,  250;  foreign  policy, 
252;  peace  negotiations,  252-253,  256; 
revolution,  and  the  Entente,  269 ;  chaotic 
conditions,  270;  in  Italy,  293;  paci- 
fism, 294;  and  Brest-Litovsk  treaty, 
334;  and  Mittel-Europa,  335-342;  ap- 
peals against,  359;  institutions  desired 
for  Germany,  363;  and  Germany,  375; 
and  Allied  peace  treaties,  387-388;  Fin- 
land, 392 ;  foreign  intervention,  405 ; 
and  socialism,  post-war,  406-407 

Bombardments,  victims,  390 

Bonnet  Rouge  (Newspaper),  292 

Borden,  Sir  Robert,  66,  368 

Boris,  Crown  Prince  of  Bulgaria,  345-346 

Borissoff,  captured,  258 

Boroevic,  General,  176,  318-319 

Boselli,  Paolo,  158,  293,  297 

Bosnia-Herzegovina,  autonomy,  254 

Bosphorus,  internationalization,  384 

Botha,  Louis,  66-67,  368 

Bothmer,  Count,  242 

Boulogne,  occupation  by  the  Germans,  36 

Boundary  disputes,  370 

Bourgeois,  L&)n,  383 

Bourgeoisie,  Russian,  236,  239,  241,  245, 
248-249;  German,  289;  American  and 
Japanese,  336;  post-war,  405-406 

Bourlon  Wood,  captured,  280 

Bouvet  (Warship),  85 

Boy-Ed,  207 

Bozen,  91 

Bran  ting,  289 

Bratiano,  Premier,  368 

Brazil,  severs  relations  with  Germany, 
218,  271 

Bread  lines,  Russia,  227 

Bremen,  revolution,  361 

Brenta  River,  352 

Breshkovskaya,  Madame,  245 

Breslau  (Cruiser),  59-60,  70 


Brest-Litovsk  treaty,  253-259,  297,  300, 
317,  334-337,  341-342,  350,  357,  364,  375 

Brialmont,  Engineer,  189 

Briand,  Aristide,  83,  145,  167,  193,  198, 
292 

Bridges  destroyed,  394 

British  army,  organization,  23,  25 ;  advance 
halted,  30;  losses,  30,  115,  120,  122,  133, 
146,  181,  278,  281,  307,  310,  389;  con- 
scription, 148,  310-312;  artillery,  178; 
battle-lines,  278,  283,  305-306;  in  Cologne, 
359.     {See  also  Great  Britain) 

British  Expeditionary  Force,  size  of,  39; 
in  France,  62  ;  in  Egypt,  282 

British  India.     {See  India) 

British  navy,  warships  in  the  Battle  of 
Flanders,  36;  supremacy,  58-62,  65,  73, 
81-82 ;  assistance  of  Japan,  62-65 ;  and 
Turkey,  71;  submarines,  75;  attack  on 
the  Dardanelles,  83-86;  losses,  165; 
sinks  ships  at  Zeebrugge  and  Ostend,  310. 
{See  also  Great  Britain) 

Brockdorff-Rantzau,  Count  von,  364,  372 

Brody,  loi 

Bronstein.     {See  Trotsky,  Leon) 

Bruges,  captured,  35,  332 

Brussels,  captured  by  the  Germans,  28;  by 
the  Allies,  357;  entered  by  King  Albert, 
3S8_ 

Brussilov,  General,  44,  51,  loi,  172-174, 
176,  228-229,  242-243 

Buchan,  John,  Nelson's  history  of  the 
War,  303 

Bucharest,  189;  Treaty  of,  259,  297,  300, 
317,  346,  357,  364 

Buczacz,  captured,  174 

Budapest,  revolution,  355;  socialist  revo- 
lution, 384 

Buffer  states,  19,  25 

Buildings,  destroyed  by  the  Germans,  394 

Bukowina,  Russian  army  in,  47;  cession  to 
Rumania,  123;  captured,  174;  evac- 
uated by  Russians,  243;  union  with 
Rumania,  354 

Bulgaria,  and  Adrianople,  73;  territorial 
demands,  87,  122-125;  hostile  to  Allies, 
95-96;  loans  from  Germany,  125;  secret 
convention  with  Austria-Hungary,  84, 
125;  treaty  with  Turkey,  125;  enters 
the  War,  124-129;  and  the  Allies,  287; 
indifference,  300;  surrenders,  342-348; 
sues  for  armistice,  345 ;  treaty,  Nov.  27, 
1918,  383-384;  food  supply,  393 

Bulgarian  army,  mobilization,  125;  battle- 
line,  343 ;,  losses  389 

Billow,  General  von,  26,  28,  30-31,  36,  38, 

91 
Bundesrat,  9 


INDEX 


441 


Bureaucracy,  in  Russia,  225-231,  237- 
238;  in  Austria,  265;  in  Germany, 
268,  301 ;  among  the  Allies,  404 ;  state 
socialism,  407 

Bureaus,  international,  and  the  League 
of  Nations,  covenant,  422 

Burian,  Stephan,  Baron,  47,  91,  266,  317, 
352 

Byng,  Sir  Julian,  305-307,  326,  329 

Cables,  submarine,  surrendered  by  Ger- 
many, 377 

Cadorna,  Luigi,  95,  97,  156-157,  169,  174, 
176,  272,  294-296 

Caillaux,  Joseph,  292-293 

Calais,  German  designs  on,  36,  307 

Calthorpe,  Admiral,  347-348 

Cambon,  Jules,  368 

Cambrai,  captured,  35,  329;  Battle  of, 
280-281 

Camouflage,  cf  ships,  221 

Camp  Ufe,  educational  value  of,  409 

Canada,  loyalty,  66 

Canadian  army,  holds  Ypres,  116;  losses, 
390 

Canals,  international  control,  290 

Cantigny,  captured,  323 

Cape-to-Cairo  railway,  399 

Capelle,  Vice- Admiral  von,  164 

Capital  and  labor,  and  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, 378 

Capitalism,  post-war,  408 

Capitalistic  imperialism,  399-401 

Capitalists,  German,  lo-ii;  eliminated  in 
Germany,  362 

Caporetto,  captured,  295 

Carey,  Gen.  Sandeman,  306 

Caroline  Islands,  occupied  by  the  Jap- 
anese, 67 

Carpathian  passes,  47-48,  99,  loi,  187,  259 

Carso  plateau,  176;  captured,  294-295 

Carson,  Sir  Edward,  66,  131,  159,  311-312 

Casement,  Sir  Roger,  1 60-1 61 

Castelnau,  General,  28,  33,  118,  169 

Catholic  Centrists..    {See  Centrists) 

Catholic  Church,  and  militarism,  1 1 ;  ex- 
clusion from  participation  in  diplomatic 
questions,  92;  Pope  Benedict,  197-198, 
290-291,  331,  410;  peace  plea,  290-291; 
and  Joseph  Caillaux,  292  ;  German  propa- 
ganda, 293 ;  and  conscription  in  Ireland, 
311-312;  in  Serbia,  386;  post-War 
parties,  406 ;  Social,  post- War,  407 ; 
Popular  Party  in  Italy,  post-War,  407; 
War  Council,  U.  S.,  post- War,  407;  and 
the  War,  410 

Cattaro,  135 

Cattle,  decrease,  393 


Caucasus,  Provisional  government  and  the 
Soviets,  337 

Cavell,  Edith,  120 

Censorship,  press,  21;  in  Germany,  269, 
288;  post- War,  404 

Central  Committee  of  the  Constitutional 
Democratic  Party,  Russia,  337 

Central  Committee  of  the  Russian  Socialist 
Revolutionary  Party,  337 

Centrists,  Germany,  11,  266-269,  33t^> 
361,  363,  373 ;  post- War,  407 

Cettinje,  captured,  135 

Chalons,  captured,  33 

Champagne,  Allied  attack,  11 8-1 19 

Chanak  (Fort),  85 

Charleroi,  captured,  30 

Charles,  Emperor  of  Austria,  195,  197, 
263-266,  270,  317,  350,  353-356 

Charles  I,  King  of  Rumania,  182 

Charles  V,  Emperor,  396 

Charles  Francis,  Archduke  of  Austria, 
158,  185 

Chateau-Thierry,  captured,  323 

Chaulnes,  captured,  273 

Chauny,  captured,  306 

Chauvinism,  94 

Chemical  industries,  development  of,  409 

Chemin  des  Dames,  277;     captured,  329 

Cherbatov,  Prince,  109,  in 

Child  labor,  and  the  Treaty  of  Versailles, 
378-379;  and  the  League  of  Nations 
covenant,  422 

Children,  traffic  in,  and  the  League  of  Na- 
tions covenant,  422 

China  and  Germany,  1 1 ;  independence  of, 
63;  Russo-Japanese  War,  108;  severs 
relations  with  Germany,  271;  protec- 
tion of,  371 ;  refuses  to  sign  Peace  Treaty, 
374;  German  rights  renounced,  375; 
treaty  not  ratified,  383;  and  Japan, 
400;  republic,  402 

Chlorine  gas,  11 5-1 17.  {See  also  Gases, 
poisonous) 

Cholm,  incorporated  into  Ukrainia,  349 

Christian  missions,  protection,  410 

Christian  People's  Party.     {See  Centrists) 

Christian  Socialists,  Austria,  356,  407 

Church,  leadership  and  a  negotiated  peace; 
unity,  post- War,  410 

Churchill,  Winston,  81,  133 

Cilicia,  French  mandatary,  384,  400 

Ciove,  Monte,  157 

City  of  Memphis  (Ship),  216 

Cividale,  captured,  295 

Civilization,  defense  of,  206 

Clam-Martinitz,  Count,  264-265 

Class,  dictatorship,  Russia,  246;  struggle, 
Russia,  239;  hatred,  post- War,  407 


442 


INDEX 


Clemenceau,  Georges,   293,   297,    313,  323, 

368-370,  372 
Clericals,  Belgivun,  post-War,  407 
Coal   resources,    40;     fields,    Russia,    259; 
Petroseny     basin,     259;      delivered     by 
Germany,    377;     mines    damaged,    393- 

394 

Coaling  station,  cession  to  Italy,  385 

Coblenz,  mobilization  of  German  army, 
22;  occupied  by  Allied  troops,  357; 
administered  by  the  U.  S.  army,  359; 
evacuated  by  Allied  armies,  377 

Collective  bargaining,  406 

Cologne,  occupied  by  Allied  troops,  357; 
administered  by  the  British  army,  359; 
evacuated  by  Allied  armies,  377 

Colonies,  trade.  Socialist  program,  290; 
adjustment  of  claims,  298;  mandataries, 
401,  420.  {See  also  Africa,  Germany, 
colonies,  etc.) 

Combles,  captured,  180 

Commerce,  national  and  international,  2-7 ; 
German,  10;  trade-war,  169-170;  trade 
routes,  Berlin  and  the  Near  East,  134, 
282;  "open  door"  for  colonies,  290; 
removal  of  economic  barriers,  298;  con- 
trol of.  League  of  Nations,  380,  401, 
421-422;  development  of  devices  and 
implements,  408-409 

Committee  on  Public  Information,  U.  S., 
222 

Commons,  House  of,  elections,  403 

Competition,  industrial,  411 

Compiegne,  captured,  31,  315 

Compulsory  war-service.     {See  Conscription) 

Concrete  redoubts,  279 

Conference,  at  Potsdam  (1914),  14-16; 
to  Revise  War-Aims,  at  Paris,  246-247; 
of  France,  Gt.  Brit.,  and  Italy,  at  Ra- 
pallo,  271 ;  Allied  Conference  at  Paris, 
272 ;  of  International  Sociahsts,  267, 
289-292;  of  All-Russian  Factions  at 
Prinkipo  Island,  387.  {See  also  Peace 
Conferences) 

Conferences,  secret,  bankers',  289 

Congress,  U.  S.,  war  measures,  222;  of 
Ruthenians,  at  Kiev,  238;  of  Oppressed 
Nationalities,  at  Rome,  350;  Definitive 
Peace  Congress,  372 

Connolly,  James,  161 

Conscription,  British  Isles,  147-148,  310- 
311 ;  in  Germany,  195,  375 

Conservatives,  Germany,  267-268;  in  Gt. 
Brit.,  403 

Conspirators,  pro-German,  207 

Constantine,  King  of  Greece,  87,  95,  123, 
129-134,  136,  190-191,  284-285,  344 

Constantinople,  69-72,  83-89;    and  Russia, 


55,     234,     252;      to     Berlin,     railroads, 

282;    defenseless,  359;    internationalized, 

384 
Constituent  National  Assembly,  of  Russia, 

228-229,    244,    248-249,    251-252,    341; 

of  Austria,   356;    of  Germany,    361-363, 

374 
Constitution,    of    Prussia,    9;     of    Finland, 

230;    of  Ireland,    263;    of   the   German 

Republic,  364 
"Contemptible  little  army,"  80 
Contraband,  204 
Convoy  of  merchantmen,  221 
Cooperation,  Allies,  168-170,  202-203,  210; 

in   Germany,    195;     AUied   armies,    277; 

international,     365,     379;      nationalists, 

398 ;  bourgeoisie  and  socialism,  post-War, 

406-407 ;    in  production,  post-War,  407- 

408;  religious,  post-War,  410;   social  and 

international,  411 
Copper  mines,  134 
Corea.     {See  Korea) 
Corfu,  135  ;   Declaration  of,  265,  354 
Corinth,  Isthmus  of,  captured,  284 
Cosmopolitanism,  396 
Cossacks  of  the  Don,  anti-Bolshevik,  255; 

and  the  Soviets,  337 
Cost  of  living,  392,  406 
Costa      Rica,    severs   relations   with    Ger- 
many, 271 
Cote  de  I'Oie,  captured,  153,  277 
Cotton  industry,  destroyed,  394 
Council  of  National  Defense,  in  U.  S.,  222; 

in  Russia,  245 
Council  of  People's  Commissioners,  Russia, 

247,  249,  251,  257 
Coimcil  of  the  Empire,  Russia,  225 
Covmcil   of   the   League   of   Nations,    first 

meeting,  383 
Council  of  Three,  370;    of  Four,  370;    of 

Five,  370-372  ;  of  Ten,  of  the  Preliminary 

Peace  Conference,  370 
Council   of   Workmen's  Deputies,   Russia, 

228 
Council,  War,  at  Paris,  169 
Courland.     {See  Latvia) 
Court  of  International  Justice,  41 7 
Courtrai,  captured,  332 
Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations.     {See 

League  of  Nations) 
Covenant  of  Versailles,  398 
Cracow,  45-46,  48-49,  99 ;  riots,  349 
Craiova,  captured,  188 
Craonne,  captured,  277 
Creel,  George,  222 
Crimean  War,  72 
Croatia,  martial  law,  35 1 ;  cession  to  Serbia, 

384 


INDEX 


443 


Croats,  in  Austria,  263;  Jugoslav  control, 
354         _  _  • 

Crown  Prince  Frederick  William  of  Ger- 
many and  Prussia.  {See  Frederick  Wil- 
liam) 

Crown  Prince  Rupprecht  of  Bavaria.  {See 
Rupprecht) 

Ctesiphon,  captured,  137 

Cuba,  German  conspirators,  207;  joins 
the  Allies,  218,  271 

Cumieres,  captured,  154 

Currency  inflation,  392 

Curzon,  Earl,  193 

Cuxhaven,  59 

Cyprus,  annexed  by  Gt.  Brit.,  72;  cession 
to  Greece,  123 

Cyrenaica,  Italy's  hold  on,  400 

Czechoslovak,  mutinies,  82,  317;  army, 
389;  army  in  Siberia,  337-340 

Czechoslovakia,  autonomy,  349;  govern- 
ment recognized,  351;  independence, 
352-356,  383;  territorial  demands, 
366,  371;  food  supply,  393;  nationaUsm, 
397;  republican  form  of  government, 
402 

Czechoslovaks,  occupy  Upper  Silesia,  359 

Czechs,  in  Austria,  rebellion,  263 ;  indict- 
ment of  the  Habsburg  monarchy,  264- 
26s 

Czernin,  Count  Ottokar,  254,  256,  264- 
266,  270,  289,  317 

Czernowitz,  47;  captured,  243 

Dalmatia,  cession  to  Italy,  91,  385;  ces- 
sion to  Serbia,  386 

Damage,  by  the  Germans.  {See  Destruc- 
tion) 

Damascus,  under  the  Arabs  of  Hedjaz,  384 

Damloup,  redoubt,  155  ;   captured,  192 

Danish  Islands,  207.     {See  also  Denmark) 

Dankl,  General,  44-46,  52 

Danube  River,  Allied  control,  353 

Danzig,  42;  an  internationalized  free  city, 
375,381 

Dardanelles,  70,  83-85,  92;  failure  of  cam- 
paign, 122;  close  of  campaign,  133; 
internationalization,  298,  384 

David,  Eduard,  364 

Dead  Man's  Hill,  152-153,  277 

Debeney,  General,  326,  329 

Debts,  public,  of  belligerent  nations,  391 

Declaration  of  Corfu,  265,  354 

Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  the  Toiling 
and  Exploited  Peoples,  250-252 

Defeatism,  199-200,  212,  288,  291-294; 
in  France,  292-293;  in  Italy,  294,  297; 
obstacle  to  Allied  victory,  297,  325 

Definitive  Peace  Congress,  372. 


Degoutte,  General,  321,  323,  329 

Delcasse,  Theophile,  83,  131 

Democracy,  and  diplomacy,  5-7;  world 
made  safe  for,  217,  263;  Russia,  231- 
232;  Bolshevist  policy,  248;  in  Austria, 
264;  in  Germany,  269,  299,  362,  364; 
diplomacy,  290;  after  the  War,  402- 
405,  408 ;  industrial,  post-war,  407-408 

Democratic  Party  in  Poland,  post-War,  407 

Democrats,  Germany,  373 

Denikin,  General,  242,  359 

Denmark,  Danish  Islands,  207;  demands 
Schleswig,  360;  acquires  Schleswig,  375. 
{See  also  Scandinavia) 

Dependent  states,  construction  of,  145 

Deportations  of  Belgians  and  French, 
144-145,  195 

Derby,  Lord,  147-148 

De  Robeck,  Vice-Admiral,  85 

Destruction,  by  the  Germans,  274,  377, 
393-395 

Determinism,  and  the  War,  410 

Deutschland  (Submarine),  166 

De  Valera,  Eamonn,  311,  387 

Devastation,  by  the  Germans.  {See  De- 
struction) 

Devlin  (Irish  leader),  159 

DeWet,  Gen.,  66-67 

Diala  River,  283 

Diaz,  General,  296,  318-319,  352-353 

Dictator,  military,  291-292 

DiUon,  John,  311 

Diplomacy,  pre- War,  5-7;  Teutonic  and 
Allied,  57,  82;  and  a  negotiated  peace, 
288 ;  democratic  control,  290 

Dirigibles,  221 

Disarmament.  {See  Armament,  limitation 
of) 

Disease,  international  control  of,  through  the 
League  of  Nations,  381,  422 

Divine-right  monarchy  extinct,  402 

Dixmude,  captured,  36 

Dmitriev,  Radko,  46,  51 

Dobrudja,  and  Bulgaria,  123,  343;  cap- 
tured, 188-191;  autonomy,  254;  given 
up  by  Rumania,  259;  cession  to  Ru- 
mania, 383 

Dodecanese.     {See  Aegean  islands) 

Dogger  Bank,  naval  engagement,  62 

Domestic  disturbances,  82 

Don  Cossacks,  anti-Bolshevik,  255;  and 
the  Soviets,  337 

Dorpat,  captured,  258 

Douai,  35  ;  captured,  39,  332 

Douaumont,  150-155  ;   captured,  192 

Dover,  raided,  74 

Draft,  selective,  222 

Drama  (Town),  cession  to  Bulgaria,  123 


444 


INDEX 


Drang  nach  Osten,  136,  142 

Dresden  (Cruiser),  60 

Drives,  German,  143 

Drugs,  dangerous,  and  the  League  of  Na- 
tions covenant,  422 

Drummond,  Sir  Eric,  383,  423 

Dual  Alliance  (Franco-Russian),  6 

Dual  Monarchy.     {See  Austria-Hungary) 

Dublin,  Sinn  Fein,  1 58-1 61;  home-rule 
meetings,  310-31 1 

Dubno,  captured,  173 

Dukla  Pass,  48 ;  abandoned,  loi 

Duma.     {See  Russia,  Duma) 

Dumba,  Constantine,  207 

Diina  River,  106-107 

Dunkirk,  35-36 

Durazzo,  135 ;  captured,  136,  346 

Duval,  292 

Dwellings,  destroyed,  394 

Dyeing  industries,  development  of,  409 

East  Prussia,  invasion  of,  40-43 

Ebert,  Friedrich,  361-364,  372 

Economic  blockade.     {See  Blockade) 

Economic  resources,  Allied  and  Central 
Powers  compared,  81 ;  Conference,  Paris, 
169;  rights,  and  nationalism,  397;  in- 
dividualism, pre-War,  408 

Economics,  scientific  study  of,  409 

Ecuador,  severs  relations  with  Germany, 
271,  388 

Education,  and  the  Allied  peace  treaties, 
386;  and  science,  408-410;  among  the 
troops  at  the  front,  410 

Educational  value  of  camp  and  army  life,  409 

Efficiency,  German,  83 

Egypt,  and  Gt.  Brit.,  55,  71-72,  399;  Mos- 
lem rebellions,  71,  82 ;  and  Turkey,  136- 
137;  German  rights  renovmced,  375; 
nationalism,  397 

Eichhorn,  Field  Marshal  von,  337 

Einen,  General  von,  320-321 

Eisner,  Kurt,  360,  363 

Eix,  152 

El  Bassan,  captured,  135,  346 

EI  Ramie,  captured,  286 

Elections,  Austria,  356 

Electoral  reforms,  Prussia,  269,  331;  Ger- 
many, 362;  Gt.  Brit.,  and  France,  403- 
404.     {See  also  Suffrage,  Women  suffrage) 

Emden  (Cruiser),  60-61 

Emmich,  General  von,  27 

Engineers,  American  railroad,  and  the 
Trans-Siberian  railway,  340-341 

Engines,  stolen,  394 

England.     {See  Great  Britain) 

English  army.     {See  British  army) 

English  navy.     {See  British  navy) 


Entangling  alliances,  204,  211,  400.  {See 
also  Alliances) 

Entente,  aUiance  with  Italy,  72-73;  propa- 
ganda, 207-208;  secret  treaties,  220, 
252-253,  367;  resume  of  membership, 
270-271;  secret  treaty  with  Japan,  370. 
{See  also  Alliances) 

Enver  Pasha,  70,  82,  282,  347 

fipinal,  31 

Erdelli,  General,  242-243 

Erzberger,  Mathias,  331,  357,  364 

Erzerum,  captured,  140 

Erzingian,  captvircd,  142,  182 

Esperey,  Gen.  Franchet  d',  32,  344-347, 
352,  359 

Espionage  Act,  U.  S.,  222 

Essad  Pasha,  135-136 

Essen,  Krupp  guns,  23-24,  84-85,  no; 
food  riots,  170 

Estaires,  captured,  308 

Esthonia,  Provisional  government,  238; 
and  Mittel-Europa,  255,  334;  inde- 
pendence, 341,  359;  nationalism,  397; 
republican  form  of  government,  402 

Eugene,  Archduke,  47,  52 

Eupen,  cession  to  Belgium,  374 

European  War.     {See  Great  War) 

Ewarts,  General,  171,  230 

Excess  profits  tax  act,  222 

Expeditionary  (Allied)  Force  at  Salonica, 
344 

Factors  reUed  upon  to  win  the  war,  81-83 

Falkenhayn,  Erich  von,  40,  148,  184,  187- 
189,  192 

Famine,  caused  by  the  Turks,  390 

Far  East,  general  peace  in,  63-64 

Farmers,  post- War  prosperity,  406 

Fatherland  Party,  Germany,  166 

Favored-nation  tariffs,  377 

Fiayolle,  General,  180,  306-307,  321 

Feisal,  Prince,  368 

Feng,  Kwo-Cheng,  President  of  Chinese 
Republic,  271 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Bulgaria,  84,  124-125, 
127,  190,  343,  345-346 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Rumania,  182,  184 

Fere-Champenoise,  32 

Fere-en-Tardenois,  captured,  323 

Finland,  54;  constitution,  230;  autonomy, 
237,  251,  255,  290,  359;  peace  treaty 
with  Germany,  Austria,  and  Russia, 
259;  vanquished,  300;  and  Mittel-Europa, 
334-335;  food  supply,  392;  nationalism, 
397  ;   republican  form  of  government,  402 

Fire,  liquid,  177 

Firth  of  Forth,  surrender  of  German  navy, 
359 


INDEX 


445 


Fisher,  Herbert,  410 

Fishing  vessels  sunk,  394 

Fismes,  captured,  314-315.  323 

Fiume,  cession  to  Italy,  371,  385-386 

Five  Great  Powers,  95 ;  Council  of,  370- 
372 

Flanders,  Battle  of,  36,  278-281 

Flares  and  rockets,  303 

Fleury,  captured,  155 

Foch,  Ferdinand,  32-33,  117,  272,  276, 
313-316,  320-323,  326,  328,  332,  344, 
352,  356,  358,  368,  372 

Foodstuffs,  from  the  Balkan  States,  134; 
in  Austria  and  Germany,  170,  192;  U.  S. 
to  Poland,  196-197;  to  Gt.  Brit.,  219; 
Control  and  Shipping  Acts,  222;  dicta- 
torship, Hoover,  223;  Russia,  227; 
American,  261 ;  administratorship,  Mi- 
chaelis,  268;  for  Germany,  269,  334; 
Siberia,  335,  338;  diminished  produc- 
tion, 392;  post- War  conditions,  392- 
393,  406^ 

Force,  in  international  relations,  211,  270; 
moral,  290;  habit  of  resorting  to,  405- 
406.     (See  also  Militarism) 

Ford,  George  B.,  393 

Forts  and  fortifications,  Poland,  104;  Ger- 
man underground,  114;  frailty  of,  148; 
German,  to  be  razed,  375 

Four,  Council  of,  370 

Fournet,  Admiral  du,  190 

Fourteen  Points,  297-298,  332,  367 

France,  alliances  with  Great  Britain  and 
Russia,  6 ;  Germany  declares  war  against, 
18;  production  of  munitions,  118;  de- 
clares war  against  Bulgaria,  126;  de- 
portations, 144-145,  195;  and  the  Ger- 
man peace,  198;  not  represented  at 
Stockholm  Peace  Conference,  290;  res- 
toration of  all  territory,  298;  terri- 
torial demands,  366;  alliance  with  U.  S. 
and  Gt.  Brit.,  370,  383 ;  treaties  with  U.  S. 
and  Gt.  Brit.,  381 ;  civilians  killed,  390 ; 
public  debt,  391-392  ;  taxes,  392 ;  damage 
and  destruction,  394;  foremost  military 
power,  400 ;  electoral  reforms,  403-404 

Francis  Ferdinand,  archduke,  assassina- 
tion, 13-14,  374 

Francis  Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria,  195 

Frankfort  Assembly,  8 

Frederick  II  (the  Great),  of  Prussia,  8 

Frederick,  Archduke,  102,  172-173 

Frederick  William  I,  of  Prussia,  8 

Frederick  William,  Crown  Prince  of  Ger- 
many and  Prussia,  12,  27,  29,  31-34,  36, 
149-155,  158,  185,  192,  277-278,  304, 
320,  361-362 

Free  trade,  socialist  peace  program,  290 


Freedom  of  the  seas,   204,   206,   211,   214- 

215,  290,  298,  357,  370 
French,   Gen.   Sir  John,   28-29,   30-32,   62, 

115,  118,  147,  312 
French  army,  organization,  23-24;    plan  of 

defense,     25 ;      advance    halted,     28-31 ; 

successful  resistance,   32-33 ;    irresistible, 

40;    losses,  120,  181,  314-315;    artillery, 

178;     battle-line,    323;     in   Mainz,    359; 

losses,  389 ;   colonial  army,  losses,  390 
French  Canadians,  loyalty,  66 
French  navy,  60;    in  the  Dardanelles,  84- 

86 
French  Revolution,  and  nationalization,  3 
Fresnes,  152 
Friedensturm,  320 
Frise,  captured,  150 
Frontier  disputes,  371 
Fuel  administrator,  Garfield,  223 

Gaelic  League,  159 

Galicia,  41 ;  Russian  invasion,  43-50 ;  re- 
covery by  Austria,  99-102;  Polish,  195- 
196;  evacuated  by  Russians,  243;  Poles 
and  Ruthenians  in,  263 ;  repudiates 
Austrian  rule,  355;  mandatary  of  Po- 
land, 385 

Gallieni,  General,  31,  148,  166 

Gallipoli  Peninsula,  85-86,  88-89;  failure 
of  campaign,  122,  281-282;  withdrawal 
from,  131,  133-134,  136,  139,  141 

Garfield,  Harry  A.,  223 

Gases,  poisonous,  11 5-1 17,  177,  408 

Gaulois  (Warship),  85 

Gaza,  captured,  286 

Geddes,  Sir  Eric,  394 

Geneva,  provisional  agreement  between 
Serbia  and  Jugoslavia,  354;  seat  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  415 

Georgia,  and  Mittel-Europa,  335 

Georgians,  autonomy,  238 

Gerard,  James,  215 

German  army,  size  of,  22;  organization, 
22-24;  position  of  divisions,  25-28, 
30-31 ;  advance  halted,  32 ;  battle-lines, 
33,  35,  192,  242,  262,  272-274,  303,  305- 
306,  310;  advance  toward  coast,  35- 
36;  position  at  close  of  191 4,  37;  losses, 
44,  48,  120,  155,  174,  178,  180-181,  192, 
242,  272-278,  280,  301,  307-308,  313, 
316,  323-324,  326,  328-330,  333,  389; 
retreat  in  Poland,  52;  advantages,  99- 
100 ;  equipment,  105 ;  height  of  triumph, 
121-124;  drives,  143;  munitions,  147; 
waning  strength,  197 ;  devastation  of 
territory,  273-274;  Sturmtruppen,  302, 
306;  artillery,  304;  conscription,  334; 
mutinies,  361 ;  reduction  of,  375 


446 


INDEX 


German  army  plans,  general,  24-27,  40; 
against  Russia,  102-103 ;  on  the  Western 
Front,  148-149,  300-304,  307,  314-315, 
320;  against  Rumania,  187-188;  against 
Italy,  294 

German  colonies,  conquest  of,  65-68 ;  African 
colonies,  67-69;  restoration,  254;  sur- 
rendered, 375 ;  mandataries  of  other  na- 
tions, 381,  401,  420-421 ;   lost,  398 

German  East  Africa,  cession  to  Gt.  Brit., 
375.     (See  also  Africa,  German  colonies) 

German  navy,  activities,  59-61,  63;  losses, 
64,  166,  398;  ships  seized,  222;  mutinies, 
356,  360;  surrender  of  warships,  357, 
359;  revolution,  362;  reduction  of,  375- 
376 

German  peace,  prospect  of,  in  191 6,  143; 
peace  talk  in  Germany,  166-167;  "Peace 
drives,"  191-200,  287;  peace  offer  to 
Russia,  258;  peace  resolution,  267- 
268;  negotiations,  269;  hopes  of,  in  191 7, 
299;  "Peace  offensive"  in  1918,  320; 
a  dictated  peace  to  Russia  and  Rumania, 
364 

German  Southwest  Africa,  cession  to  British 
Union  of  South  Africa,  375.  {See  also 
Africa,  German  colonies) 

German  state  of  Austria,  355 

Germans  in  Bohemia,  386 

Germany,  alliance  with  Austria,  6,  317; 
nationalism,  8,  396-397 ;  iron  ring,  1 1 ; 
and  Japan,  11;  and  China,  11;  declares 
war,  18;  invasion  of  Belgium  and  France, 
32-33;  gains  and  losses,  39-40;  com- 
merce, 58,  61 ;  conquest  of  colonies, 
65-69;  influence  in  Turkey,  69;  im- 
p>erialism,  72,  143;  counter-offensive  on 
the  seas,  73-79;  government  control  of 
food  supply,  76;  war-loans,  81;  economic 
resources,  81 ;  diplomacy,  82 ;  influence 
in  Greece  and  Rumania,  84;  conquers 
Poland,  102-107;  "f  rightfulness,"  117; 
masters  the  Near  East,  1 21-142;  con- 
quers Serbia,  124-129;  trade  in  the  Near 
East,  134-282;  optimism,  143,  146- 
148,  166,  197;  fails  to  obtain  a  decision 
in  1916,  143-167;  unity  of  command, 
144;  Fatherland  Party,  166;  blockade, 
against,  170;  Peace  Drive,  191-200; 
Patriotic  Auxiliary  Service  Act,  195; 
foodstuffs  for  Poland,  196-197;  con- 
spirators m  U.  S.,  206-207;  reply  to 
President  Wilson's  note  on  war-aims, 
209;  rules  for  safety  of  U.  S.  shipping, 
214-215;  territorial  demands,  254-255; 
acquisitions,  258;  dommation  over  Slavs, 
263;  makes  the  supreme  effort,  299- 
325;    madness,  "Whom  the  Gods  would 


destroy,"  299-304;  drive  against  the 
British,  304-313;  Battle  of  Picardy, 
304-313;  drive  against  the  French, 
313-316;  Battles  of  the  Aisne  and  Oise, 
313-316;  drive  against  the  Italians, 
317-320;  final  drive,  2d  Battle  of  the 
Mame,  320-325;  national  unity,  360; 
Empire  lasts  through  two  reigns  only, 
361 ;  Constituent  National  Assembly, 
361-363,  374;  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment, 362;  provisional  constitution, 
364;  excluded  from  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence, 367;  public  debt,  391-392;  state- 
system,  398 

Ghent,  35;  captured,  332;  entered  by 
King  Albert,  358 

Gild  sociahsm,  post- War,  407 

Gilinsky  (aid-de-camp  to  the  Tsar),  169 

Giolitti,  94 

Gneisenau,  Count,  8 

Gneisenau  (Cruiser),  60 

Goeben  (Cruiser),  59-60,  70 

Goliath  (Battleship),  88 

Golitzin,  Prince,  226-227 

Goltz,  Marshal  von  der,  139,  141 

Good  Hope  (Warship),  60 

Goose  Ridge  (Cote  de  I'Oie),  captured, 
153,  277 

Goremykin,  Premier,  109,  iii,  226 

Gorizia,  91;   captured,  176,  182,  184,  295 

Gorlice,  captured,  loi 

Gough,  Sir  Hubert,  305-307,  312 

Gouraud,  General,  321,  329,  332 

Gourko,  General,  230,  242 

Government  ownership,  Bolshevist  policy, 
248;  Soviet  poUcy,  250;  transportation 
and  communication,  406 

Gradisca,  91,  93 

Grain,  Rumanian,  182;  American,  223; 
Siberia,  338 

Grappa,  Monte,  Austrian  defeat,  35  2 

Graudenz,  42 

Great  Britain,  alliances  with  Japan,  France 
and  Russia,  6;  approach  of  the  War, 
15-20;  masters  the  seas,  58-79;  al- 
liance with  Japan,  63  ;  loyalty  of  colonies, 
65-69;  alliance  with  Russia,  69;  im- 
perialism, 72;  Ministry  of  Munitions, 
83 ;  Coalition  Cabinet,  83 ;  production 
of  munitions,  118;  declares  war  against 
Bulgaria,  126;  War-weariness,  146- 
147;  changes  in  Cabinet,  193;  North- 
cliffe  and  English  journalism,  193,  197, 
208;  electoral  reforms,  262;  not  repre- 
sented at  Stockholm  Peace  Conference, 
290;  and  Irish  difficulties,  300;  terri- 
torial demands,  366;  aUiance  with  U.  S. 
and    France,     370,    383;      treaty    with 


INDEX 


447 


France  against  Germany,  381 ;  British 
subjects  killed  at  sea,  victims  of  air  raids 
and  bombardments,  390;  public  debt, 
391-392;  loans  to  Russia  and  Italy, 
392 ;  fund  to  Serbia,  393 ;  imperialism, 
399 ;  electoral  reforms,  403 

Great  Britain,  army.     {See  British  army) 

Great  Britain,  navy.     (See  British  navy) 

Great  Powers,  5-6;  at  war,  18;  Five,  95; 
changes  in,  398 

Great  War,  to  be  a  long  war,  80;  winning 
factors  relied  upon,  81-83;  and  former 
wars,  201;  turning  point,  313;  nations 
engaged  in,  388 

Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  73 ;  and  the  En- 
tente, 84;  territorial  demands,  87,  123, 
253,  366,  371;  armed  neutrality,  130- 
134;  surrender  of  telegraphs  and  postal 
service,  190;  restoration,  254;  enters 
the  War,  271,  285;  evacuation  by  Bul- 
gars,  345 ;  treaty  not  ratified,  383 ;  na- 
tionalism, 397 

Greek  army,  mobilization,  130;  battle- 
Une,  285;  losses,  389 

Greeks,  massacred  or  starved,  390 

Green  Book,  Italy,  89 

Gregorian  calendar,  265 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  19,  125-126,  162,  193 

Grodek  position,  loi 

Groeber  (Centrist  deputy),  331 

Griinewald,  Battle  of,  53 

Guatemala,  severs  relations  with  Ger- 
many, 271 

Guchkov,  Minister  of  War  and  Marine, 
230,  234,  245 

Guelf,  House  of,  402 

Guepratte,  Rear-Admiral,  85 

Guesde,  289 

Guillamat,  General,  285,  344 

Gumbinnen,  42 

Guns,  23-24.  {See  also  Artillery;  Ma- 
chine guns) 

Haase,  Hugo,  166,  363 

Habsburg,  House  of,  57,  264,  266,  346, 
349-351,  353,  35S-3S6,  365,  402 

Hague,  Tribunal,  17;  proposed  peace  con- 
ferences, 198 

Haifa,  captured,  347 

Haig,  Sir  Douglas,  147,  177,  273,  275-276, 
278,  301,  30s,  308,  313,  320,  329 

Haiti,  German  conspirators,  207;  severs 
relations  with  Germany,  271 

Halicz,  captured,  44,  242-243 

Haller,  Joseph,  350 

Ham,  captured,  306 

Hamburg,  revolution,  361 

Hamilton,  Sir  Ian,  87-88,  133 


Hampshire  (Cruiser),  166 

Harbin,  seat  of  Temporary  Government  of 
Autonomous  Siberia,  337 

Hardinge,  Lord,  66 

Hartlepool,  raided,  74 

Harvest  failure,  Rumania  and  Bulgaria, 
393 

Harwich,  surrender  of  German  submarines 
at,  359 

Hausen,  General  von,  26,  28,  31 

Hedjaz,  independence,  183,  282-283;  army, 
and  the  Turks,  286,  346-347 ;  protecto- 
rate under  Great  Britain,  384,  388,  399; 
army  statistics,  389 ;  nationalism,  397 

Heeringen,  General  von,  27,  29,  32 

Heights  of  the  Meuse,  149-155 

Helflerich,  Karl,  268,  304 

Heligoland,  naval  engagement,  62;  de- 
molished, 376 

Henderson,  Arthur,  193,  235,  290-291 

Herbertshohe,  67 

HertUng,  Count,  269-270,  288-289,  328, 
330-331 

Heuvel,  van  der,  368 

High  cost  of  living,  392,  406 

Hindenburg,  General  von,  42-43,  45-47, 
50-52,  171,  174,  184-185,  187,  270, 
272-278,  300-301,  304,  328,  361 

Hindenburg  Line,  280-281,  326,  328 

Hindenburg's  Drive,  102-107,  109,  117, 
120 

Hintze,  Admiral  von,  320 

Hipper,  Vice-Admiral  von,  165 

History,  scientific  study  of,  409 

Hoetzendorf,     Field     Marshal    von,     318- 

319 

HohenzoUern,  House  of,  8,  259,  282,  285, 
356,  364-365,  402 

Holland.     {See  Netherlands) 

"Holy  War,"  71 

Home  rule  for  Ireland,  158-161,  262-263, 
310-311 

Homs,  captured,  347 

Honduras,  severs  relations  with  Germany, 
271 

Hoover,  Herbert,  223,  392 

Home,  Sir  Henry,  307,  328-329 

Horvath,  General,  337 

Hours  of  labor,  and  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, 378-379;  post- War,  406 

House,  Colonel,  368 

House  of  Commons,  elections  under  new 
reform  act,  403 

Howitzers.     {See  Guns) 

Hughes,  Charles,  208 

Hughes,  William,  368 

Humbert,  292 

Hunding  Line,  332 


448 


INDEX 


Hungary,  grain  fields,  102 ;  domination  over 
Rumans,  Slovaks,  and  Jugoslavs,  263; 
discontent,  265 ;  declared  a  republic, 
355,  383,  402 ;  stripped  of  non-Magyar 
peoples,  384;  public  debt,  391;  na- 
tionalism, 397 

Husein,  Sherif  of  Mecca,  183,  282-283 

Hussein  Kemal  Pasha,  72 

Hutier,  General  von,  243-244,  303,  306, 
315-316,  320 

Hydroplanes,  221 

Hymans,  Paul,  368 

Illinois  (Ship),  216 

Imperialism,  4,  72,  94,  202,  236,  288,  364, 
399-402 

Income  tax  act,  222;  taxes,  392 

Indefatigable  (Cruiser),  165 

Indemnities,  Bolshevist  policy,  254;  so- 
cialist program,  289 ;  by  Central  empires, 
291 ;  paid  by  Bulgaria,  384 

Independents,  Germany,  289 

India,  loyalty,  66;  and  a  "Holy  War," 
71;  Moslem  rebellions,  82;  troops  at 
Gallipoli,  122;  and  the  Turks,  137;  army, 
losses,  390;   nationalism,  397 

Individualism,  economic,  pre-War,  408 

Industrial  revolution,  205 ;  situation  in 
Russia,  225;  solidarity,  289;  revolution 
in  Germany,  361 ;  leaders,  and  a  negotiated 
peace,  288 ;  conditions,  and  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles,  378-379;  convention,  383; 
disputes,  state  intervention,  406;  labor 
hours,  post- War,  406;  democracy,  post- 
War,  407-408 ;  competition,  41 1 ;  condi- 
tions, and  the  League  of  Nations  cove- 
nant, 422.     {See  also  Labor  Party) 

Infiltration  tactics,  302-303,  306,  318- 
319,  321 

Inflation  of  currency,  392 

Inflexible  (Warship),  85 

Influenza,  deaths,  caused  by  the  War,  390 

Insterburg,  42 

Intellectuals  of  Germany,  363 

Inter-Allied  Conference,  235,  244,  312; 
General  Staff,  272;  Naval  Board,  272; 
Supreme  War  Council,  369.  {See  also 
AlUes) 

Inter-Nation,  result  of  the  Great  War,  398 

The  International,  289 

International  anarchy.  {See  Anarchy, 
international) 

International  law,  capture  of  merchant- 
men, 76-78;  arbitration,  204;  Repara- 
tion Commission,  377 ;  Labor  Office, 
378;  Labor  Conference,  annual,  378- 
379;  cooperation,  379;  Red  Cross  So- 
ciety, 410;  Justice,  Permanent  Court  of. 


417;  engagements,  articles  18  to  21  in 
the  League  of  Nations  covenant,  420; 
bureaus,  and  the  League  of  Nations 
covenant,  422 

International  Peace  Conference,  Socialists', 
at  Stockholm,  267,  289-292 

Internationalism,  205,  396 

Invincible  (Cruiser),  165 

Ipek,  captured,  135 

Ireland,  loyalty,  66;  home  rule,  66,  159- 
161,  262-263,  310-312,  387;  discontent, 
146;  Unionists,  158;  Sinn  Fein  rebellion, 
158-161;  troops,  180;  emigrants  and 
Anglophobia,  204;  constitution,  263; 
compulsory  military  service,  3 10-31 1; 
Parliament  suppressed,  387;  self-de- 
termination, 397 ;  representation,  403 

Irkutsk,  captured,  338 

Iron  ring,  11,  13;  and  steel  resources,  40; 
production  in  Russia,  259;  crosses,  362; 
industry  damaged,  393-394 

Irredentist  agitation,  89-97.  {See  also 
Italy;  Trentino) 

Irresistible  (Warship),  85 

Ishtip,  captured,  345 

Isonzo  River,  97,  113,  156,  174-175,  295- 
297 

Italian  army,  and  navy,  95 ;  battle-lines, 
156,  294;  losses,  157,  294-295,  389; 
fraternization  with  Austrian  troops,  294 

Italian  navy,  Piave  River,  95,  319 

Italy,  alliance  with  Germany  and  Austria, 
5t6;  and  the  Dual  Monarchy,  15,  57; 
Pact  of  London  (1914),  20,  95  ;  enters  the 
War,  89-98;  Treaty  of  London  (1915), 
92-93;  alliance  with  the  Entente,  72- 
73;  and  Allied  diplomacy,  82;  neu- 
trality, 84;  ^gean  Islands,  87;  enters 
the  War,  89-97;  Triple  Alliance,  90; 
geography  of  frontier,  96-97;  declares 
war  against  Bulgaria,  126;  defense, 
156-158;  and  the  German  peace,  198; 
territorial  concessions,  253 ;  frontiers  to 
be  readjusted,  298;  territorial  demands, 
366,371;  public  debt,  391-392 ;  national- 
ism, 397 ;  imperialism,  400 

Ivangorod  (Fortress),  104-106 

Ivanov,  General,  44,  51,  172,  228 

Jacobstadt,  captured,  244 

Jadar,  Battle  of,  56 

Jaffa,  captured,  276 

Jaffa- Jerusalem  railway,  286 

Jagow,  Gottlieb  von,  16,  197 

Jakova,  captured,  135 

Japan,  alliance  with  Great  Britain,   6,  63" 

and  Russia,  1 2 ;    ultimatum  to  Germany. 

62 ;    enters  the  War,  62-65 ;    Russo-Jap- 


INDEX 


449 


anese  War,  io8;  German  conspirators, 
207;  and  the  Allies,  216;  and  Shantung, 
220;  territorial  demands,  366,  371;  secret 
treaty  with  the  Entente,  370 ;  and  China, 
400 
Japanese  army,  losses,  64,  389;    in  Siberia, 

340-341 

Japanese  navy,  aid  to  Great  Britain,  62-65  > 
takes  islands  of  the  South  Pacific,  67 

Jaroslav,  captured,  43-46,  48,  99,  10 1 

JeUicoe,  Admiral  Sir  John,  165 

Jericho,  captured,  347 

Jerusalem,  captured,  286,  346 

Jerusalem- Jaffa  railway,  286 

Jewish  Welfare  Board,  410 

Jews,  in  Poland,  195;  equality,  254;  Zion- 
ism, 287,  397 ;  of  Rumania,  386 ;  mas- 
sacred or  starved,  390;  international 
protection,  397.     {See  also  Palestine) 

Joffre,  General,  28-31,  87,  131,  148,  151, 
15s,  169,  193,  220,  275 

Joint  management,  post- War,  407 

Jonnart,  Charles,  284,  293 

Joseph,  Archduke,  384 

Joseph  Ferdinand,  Archduke,  45,  100,  105 

Joseph  Frederick,  Archduke,  242 

Journal,  of  Paris  (Newspaper),  292;  Bonnet 
Rouge  (Newspaper),  292 

Journalism,  Northcliffe,  journals  in  Eng- 
land, 193,  197,  208;    Germany,  301,  304 

Jugoslavia,  autonomy,  263,  265,  349,  351- 
356;  territorial  demands,  371,  386; 
Adriatic  boimdary  line,  385-386;  food 
supply,  393 ;  nationalism,  397 

Jugoslavs,  mutinies,  82,  317;  loyal  to 
Austria-Hungary,  96 

Jvmkers,  10,  362 

Justice,  Permanent  Court  of  International, 
417 

Jutland,  Battle  of,  165 

K.   O.   N.    (Polish  Committee  of  National 

Defense),  196 
Kaiser  Wilhelmsland,  captured,  67 
Kaledine,  General,  245,  255 
Kamerun,     French     in,     68;      partitioned, 

375  ;  mandatary  under  France,  400 
Kamio,  General,  64 
Kantara,  railroad,  282,  285 
Karagatch,  cession  to  Bulgaria,  1 25 
Karolyi,  Coimt  Michael,  355,  384 
Kasan,  captured,  338 
Kastoria,  captured,  189 
Kato,  Baron,  63 
Kautsky,  Karl,  563 
Kavala,  cession  to  Bulgaria,  87,  123;    cap- 

tiu-ed,  189-190 
Keckau,  captured,  243 

2  G 


Kemmel,  Mont,  captured,  308 

Kerensky,    Alexander,    230,    234-235,    239- 

241,  244-247,  252,  290,  341 
Khvostov,  Alexis,  iii 

Kiao-chao,  60,  62-64;  cession  to  Japan,  375 
Kiel,  59;  revolution,  362 
Kiel   Canal,   internationalization,    376,    381 
Kiev,  captured,  258 
Kilid  Bahr  (Fort),  85,  88-89 
Kimpolung,  captured,  47 
Kirlibaba  Pass,  47 
Kitchener,  Lord,  21,   25,  39,  83,  115,   133, 

166,  169 
Klotz,  Louis,  293 

Kluck,  General  von,  3,  26,  28,  30-33 
Knights  of  Columbus,  410 
Koerber,  Ernst  von,  264 
Koevess,  General  von,  135 
Kolchak,  Admiral,  337,  341,  387 
Kolomea,  captured,  243 
Konigsberg,  42 
Konigsberg  (Cruiser),  61 
Korea,     Russo-Japanese     War,     108;     na- 

tionaUsm,  397 
Koritza,  captured,  189 
Kornilov,  General,  230,  243,  245-246 
Koroshetz,  Anton,  354 
Kossovo,  129 
Kovno,  captured,  106-107 
Kragujevatz,  captured,  128 
Kramarcz,  Karel,  353-3S4»  368 
Krasnik,  captured,  44,  105 
Kriemhilde  Line,  332 
Krithia,  88 

Kronprinz  Wilhelm  (Cniiser),  61 
Kropotkin,  245 
Krupp,    no;     guns,    23-24,    84-85.     {See 

also  Munitions) 
Krylenko,  General,  247 
Kiihlmann,    Richard    von,    254,    256,    258, 

268,  270,  319 
Kultur,  147,  201,  210,  274,  395,  405 
Kum  Kale  (Fort),  85-86 
Kun,  Bela,  384 

Kuprikeui,  defeat  of  Turks  at,  140 
Kuprulu,  captured,  127 
Kuropatkin,  General,  171 
Kusmanek,  General  von,  48 
Kustendil,  captured,  127 
Kut-el-Amara,    137-139;     siege,    141-142; 

captured,  282,  347 

La  Bassee,  36 

Labor  Party,  England,  21-22,  290,  406,  408; 

in  Ireland,   and  conscription,   311.     {See 

also  headings  under  Industrial) 
Labyrinth  (Trenches  and  tunnels),  117 
Lacaze,  Admiral,  193 


450 


INDEX 


Lafayette,  203 

Laibach,  riots,  349 ;  Pan-Slavic  Congress,  350 

Lambros,  Premier,  285 

Lammasch,  Professor,  353 

Land  ownership,  Bolshevist  policy,  248; 
Soviet  policy,  250;  estates,  Rumania, 
404;  nationalization  in  Great  Britain, 
406 ;  small  holdings,  407 

Landlords,  eliminated  in  Germany,  362 

Landrecies,  captured,  332 

Lands turm,  22 

Landwehr,  22 

Language,  free  use  of,  386 

Lanrezac,  General,  29-30 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  291 

Lansing,  Robert,  351,  368-369 

Laon,  39,  275 

Larissa,  captured,  284 

Latin- America,  German  conspirators,  207 

Latvia,  121;  autonomy,  238,  254,  256, 
359;  and  Mittel-Europa,  255,  334;  van- 
quished, 300;  nationalism,  397;  re- 
publican form  of  goverimient,  402 

LaiiriQr,  Sir  Wilfrid,  66 

Laventie,  captured,  308 

Law,  Andrew  Bonar,  193,  246 

League  of  Free  Nations,  270,  366-367 

League  of  Nations,  169,  203,  209-211,  298, 
331-332,  370-371,  375,  378,  398,  411; 
Covenant  of,  379,  383,  399-401 ;  text, 
413-423;  first  meeting  of  Council,  383; 
reservations,  399;  list  of  original  mem- 
bers, 423 

League  to  Enforce  Peace,  208 

Ledebour  (Socialist  leader),  166 

Leipzig,  revolution,  361 

Leipzig  (Cruiser),  60 

Lemberg,  43-44;  captured,  48,  99,  loi, 
242 ;  riots,  349 

Le  Mort  Homme,  captured,  277 

Lenin,  Nikolai,  240-241,  244,  247,  250, 
252,  258,  335-336,  384,  387-388 

Lens,  117,  119;  British  objective,  275; 
captured,  328 

Leopold,  Prince  of  Bavaria,  185,  242 

Lesina,  cession  to  Italy,  386 

Lettland.     (See  Latvia) 

Lettow-Vorbeck,  General  von,  68 

Liberal  Party,  in  Canada,  66;  in  Russia, 
108-111,  194,  226;  in  England,  158- 
159;  in  Germany,  267,  361 

Liberals,  Young  Turks.     {See  Young  Turks) 

Liberia,  enters  the  War,  271 ;  German  rights 
renounced,  375 

Liberty  Loan  Acts,  U.  S.,  222 

Liberty,  personal,  403-406 

Libya,  and  Italy,  92 

Lichnowsky,  Prince,  15 


Liebknecht,  Karl,  166,  356,  360,  362-363 

Liege,  captured,  27,  33 ;  Billow's  proclama- 
tion, 38 

Lille,  30;  captured,  35,  39,  332 

Linsingen,  General  voin,  47,  loo-ioi 

Liquid  fire,  177 

Lissa,  cession  to  Italy,  386 

Lithuania,  Teutonic  conquest,  121;  auton- 
omy, 238,  254-256,  359;  vanquished, 
300;  ajid  Mittel-Europa,  334-335;  and 
White  Russia,  336;  starvation  in,  390; 
nationalism,  397;  republican  form  of 
government,  402 

Lithuanians  in  Russia,  54 

Little  Russia,  independence,  238,  255 

Littlefield,  Walter,  389 

Livenza  River,  296,  352 

Living,  high  cost  of,  392,  406 

Livonia,  and  Mittel-Europa,  255;  in- 
dependence, 341 

Lloyd,  Sir  William,  368 

Lloyd  George,  David,  83,  166-167,  169, 
193,  198,  262,  297,  311,  368-370,  381, 
387,  403 

Loans,  U.  S.  to  the  Allies,  223 

Locomotives,  German,  surrendered,  357 

London,  Pact  of  (1914),  20,  95;  Treaty  of 
London  (1915),  92-93 

London,  raided,  74 

Longwy,  captured,  30 

Loos,  captured,  118 

Loucheur,  Louis,  293 

Louis,  King  of  Bavaria,  360,  362 

Louis  XIV,  396 

Louise,  queen  of  Prussia,  8 

Louvaih,  captured,  27-28;  destruction  of, 
37-38;  manuscripts  and  prints  destroyed, 
377 ;  Library,  394 

Lovtchen,  captured,  135 

Lowestoft,  raided,  74 

Ludd,  captured,  286 

Ludendorff,  General,  184,  254,  270,  294, 
300-303,  310,  313-321,  324-325,  327- 
328,  342,  344,  346,  351-352,  356,  364 

Liideritz  Bay,  67 

Lusitania  (Steamship),  78,  163,  206,  372 

Lutsk,  captured,  173 

Luxburg,  Count,  271 

Luxemburg,  Rosa,  166,  362-363 

Luxemburg  (Town),  19;  captured,  300,  358- 

359 
Luxuries,  taxes,  392 
Lvov,   Prince   George,    229-230,    232,    234- 

237,     239-241,     243-244,     246-248,     252, 

340-341 
Lvov  (Town).     {See  Lemberg) 
Lyautey,  Hubert,  193,  276 
Lys  River,  332 


INDEX 


451 


Macedonia    and    Bulgaria,    87,    123,    183; 

Allied     failure,     282;      battle-line,     285; 

offensive  of  (1918),  344-346;    cession  to 

Serbia,  383 
Machine-gun,    "nests,"    113,    333;     Allied, 

177-178;  development  of,  408 
Machine  tools  stolen,   394;    works  looted, 

394 

Machines,  a  war  of,  99-100,  115 

Mackensen,  General  von,  51-52,  100-102, 
104-10S,  107,  127,  129,  143,  182,  187- 
189,  192-193,  242-243,  270 

Mackensen's  Drives,  99-102 ;  into  Galicia, 
117;  against  Russia,  120;  into  Serbia, 
127-131 

MacNeill,  General,  161 

Magyars.     {See  Hungary) 

Mails,  by  airplane,  409 

Mainz,  occupied  by  Allied  troops,  357; 
administered  by  French  army,  359; 
evacuated  by  Allies,  377 

Majestic  (Battleship),  88 

Makarov,  Russian  Minister,  109 

Malines,  28;  captured,  35 

Malinoff,  Premier,  344 

Malmedy,  cession  to  Belgium,  374 

Malvy,  Louis,  292 

Mandataries,  German  colonies,  370,  375, 
381 ;  Near  East,  384 ;  of  France,  400 ; 
defined  in  the  League  of  Nations  covenant, 
401-402;   420-421 

Mangin,  General,  192;  321,  323,  326,  332 

Mannerheim,  General,  335,  359 

Manoury,  General,  32 

Manuscripts  destroyed  by  Germans,  377 

Marianne  Islands,  occupied  by  the  Jap- 
anese, 67 

Marienburg,  42 

Maritz,  Gen.,  66-67 

Marne,  ist  Battle,  31-32,33, 40, 148, 152, 15 5, 
324;    2d  Battle,  320-325 

Marshall  Islands,  occupied  by  the  Jap- 
anese, 67 

Martial  law,  in  Bohemia  and  Croatia,  351 

Marwitz,  General  von  der,  303,  306,  320 

Marx,  Karl,  239,  289 

Marxian  socialism,  post-War,  406-407 

Masaryk,  Thomas  G.,  353-354 

Massacres,  by  the  Turks,  390 

Massey,  William,  368 

Masurian  Lakes,  Battle  of,  42 

Materialism,  and  the  War,  410 

Maubeuge,  captured,  30,  39,  332 

Maude,  Gen.  Sir  Stanley,  182,  283-284 

Maud'huy,  General,  36 

Maximilian,  Chancellor  Prince,  331,  356, 
360-361 

Maxwell,  Gen.  Sir  John,  161 


Maynooth,  meeting  protesting  against 
conscription,  311 

Meat,  American,  223 

Mecca  railway,  136 

Medicine,  preventive,  development  of,  409 

Memel,  cession  to  Lithuania,  374 

Menin,  captured,  332 

Menshiviki,  239,  240-241,  244 

Mental  disorders,  treatment  of,  409 

Merchant  marine,  Germany,  398 

Merchantmen,  sunk,  163-164,  206,  219- 
224,  254,  394-395;  armed  against  sub- 
marines, 216,  290;  surrender  of  captured 
Allied,  353 

Mercier,  Cardinal,  38-39 

Merville,  captured,  308 

Mesopotamia,  and  Great  Britain,  55,  71-72, 
i37>  399;  Turkish  sovereignty,  136- 
137,  182;  Allied  failure,  282;  occupied 
by  Allies,    284;    British  mandatary,  384 

Messines,  captured,  278;  Ridge,  captured, 
308 

Metz,  22,  34;  captured,  358 

Meuse  River,  Battle  of,  .  iS2-'i55,  192; 
Valley,  333 

Mexico,  German  aUiance  with,  216 

Mezieres,  captured,  30 

Michael,  Grand  Duke  of  Russia,  229 

Michaelis,  George,  268-269,  288-289 

MiUtarism,  4-7;  German,  8-13,  364,  395- 
396,  398;  Prussian,  82 

Military,  dictator,  291-292 ;  training  in 
mandataries,  401,  421;  surgery,  develop- 
ment of,  409 

Milk  supply,  decrease,  393 

Millerand,  Alexandre,  83 

Milner,  Lord,  193,  313 

Milyukov,  Paul,  no,  194,  228,  230,  233- 
234,  245-246 

Minerals,  Mittel-Europa,  144 

Mines,  submarine,  North  Sea,  59;  neutrals 
slain  by,  390 ;  estimate  of  sinkings,  395 ; 
floating,  74;  explosive,  on  the  Messines- 
Wytschaete  ridge,  278 

Mines,  in  Galicia,  102;  copper,  134;  na- 
tionalization of,  in  Great  Britain,  406 

Minority  socialists,  Germany.  {See  Social- 
ists, Germany) 

Mirbach,  Count  von,  337 

Missions,  Christian,  inviolability  guar- 
anteed, 410 

Mitrovitza,  captured,  129 

Mittel-Europa,  69,  72,  136,  142-145,  147, 
166,  168,  170,  182-183,  185,  191,  195, 
197-198,  201,  213,  217,  225,  253-255, 
262-263,  266,  269-271,  282,  284,  289, 
294,  297,  300,  318,  325,  334-335.  342-343, 
346,  348,  350,  356,  360,  363,  365,  367,  396 


452 


r-'- 


mDEX 


Mobilization,  17-24 

Moderates,  in  Germany,  266 

Moewe  (Raider),  162 

Mohammed  V,  Sultan,  347 

Mohammed  VI,  Sultan,  347 

Moldavia,  captured,  189 

Moltke,  Helmuth,  Count  von,  8 

Moltke,  Hehnuth  von.  Chief  of  the  Gen- 
eral Staff,  27,  40,  321 

Monarchist  agitation  in  Germany,  362 

Monarchy,  and  the  War,  402 

Monastir,  123;  captured,  129,  190,  284 

Monfalcone,  91 

Monmouth  (Warship),  60 

Monro,  General,  133 

Monroe  doctrine,  204-205,  207,  211,  380, 
400;  between  China  and  Japan,  366, 
400 ;  League  of  Nations,  420 

Mons,  captured,  30,  332 

Mont  Kemmel,  captured,  308 

Mont  St.  Quentin,  captured,  273 

Montdidier,  captured,  307,  327 

Monte  Asolone,  captured,  296 

Monte  Ciove,  157 

Monte  Grappa,  Austrian  defeat,  352 

Monte  Pasubio,  157 

Monte  San  Michele,  176 

Monte  Seisemol,  352 

Monte  Tomba,  captured,  296 

Montenegrin  army,  55,  57;  losses,  389 

Montenegro,  enters  the  War,  19-20,  73; 
refuge  of  King  Peter,  129;  conquest  of, 
135-137;  restoration  and  indemnities, 
254,  298;  and  Jugoslavia,  263;  Allied 
failure,  282  ;  vanquished,  300 ;  cleared  of 
Austrians,  346;  Jugoslav  control,  354; 
disappears,  396-397;  King  Nicholas  de- 
posed in  favor  of  King  Peter  of  Serbia, 
402 

Montmedy,  captured,  30,  39 

Moreuil,  306 

Morocco,  and  a  "Holy  War,"  71 ;  Mos- 
lem rebellions,  82;  German  rights  re- 
novmced,  375;  protectorate  under  France, 
400 

Mortality,  Poland,  393 

Mortars.     {See  Guns) 

Moscow,  congress  of  Zemstvos,  in;  and 
the  revolution,  228;  Extraordinary  Na- 
tional Conference  at,  245;  seat  of  gov- 
ernment, 248 

Moslem  imrest,  71 ;  rebellions,  82 

Most-favored-nation  tariffs,  377 

Mosul  284;  captured,  347 

Motor  lorries,  German,  surrendered,  357 

Motorcycles,  24 

Mudra,  Gen.  von,  320-321 

Mudros,  Turkish  armistice  signed,  348 


Miihlon,  Dr.,  16 

Miilhausen,  captured,  28 

MiJller,  Hermann,  374 

MuUer,  Karl  von,  60-61 

Munich,  food  riots,  170 

Municipalities,  Union  of,  .in  Russia,  194, 
225 

Munitions,  gims,  23-24;  Krupp  gims, 
84-85,  no;  AUied  lack  of,  115-117; 
production  in  Great  Britain  and  France, 
118;  in  Germany,  119;  Allied  supply, 
168;  trade  in,  206;  supplied  by  U.  S., 
223;  for  Germany,  269;  manufacture 
of,  415-416;  control  of.  League  of  Na- 
tions covenant,  380,  401,  421-422.  {See 
also  Artillery) 

Murman  railway,  339-340 

Murmansk,  Allied  Expeditionary  Force, 
339-340 

Murray,  Sir  Archibald,  282,  285-286 

Mush,  captured,  140 

Namur,  captured,  28,  ss 

Nancy,  29 

Naphtha  deposits  of  Baku,  341 

Napoleon  I,  19,  396 

Napoleon  III,  19 

Narew  River,  fortresses,  104 

Narva,  captured,  258 

National  Constituent  Assembly,  of  Russia, 
228-229,  244,  248-249,  251-252,  341; 
of  Austria,  356;  of  Germany,  361-363,  374 

National  councils  of  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  peoples,  349  • 

National  Guard,  U.  S.,  222 

National  Liberals  in  Germany,  267 

National  Volunteers  in  Ireland,  159 

Nationalism,  3-7,  396-398;  and  the 
Catholic  Church,  410 

Nationalists,  in  Ireland,  159-161,  310- 
312;  in  Russia,  237 

Naumann,  Friedrich,  69 

Navy  League,  Germany,  13 

Nazareth,  captured,  347 

Near  East.  {See  Balkan  States,  Turkey, 
Armenia,  etc.) 

Negotiated  peace,  288,  292.  {See  also 
Peace) 

Negotin,  captured,  127 

Nesle,  captured,  306 

Netherlands,  loss  of  trade,  79;  reduction 
of  armaments,  360 ;  refuge  of  William  II, 
361 ;  special  convention  with  Belgium, 
385;  neutrality,  388;  anti-royalist  de- 
monstrations, 402 

Neuilly,  treaty  signed  by  Bulgaria,  383 

Neutral  nations,  388;  civilians  slain  by 
submarines,  390 


INDEX 


453 


Neutrality,  armed,  146;  U.  S.,  216-217 
Neutralization  of  straits,  254 
Neuve  Chapelle,  36;  captured,  115 
Neuve  E^glise,  captured,  308 
New   era   begins,    365-411;    losses   of   bel- 
ligerents, 388-395 
New  Mexico,  bribe  to  Mexico,  216 
New    York    Times    Current    History,    389, 

391 

New  Zealand,  loyalty,  68;  territorial  de- 
mands, 371;  army,  losses,  390 

Newfoundland,  loyalty,  66 

Nicaragua,  severs  relations  with  Ger- 
many, 271 

Nicholas  II,  Tsar  of  Russia,  110-112,  194, 
198,  217,  225-230,  233,  235,  239,^338 

Nicholas,  Grand  Duke  of  Russia,  42,  46, 
53,  99>  105-106,  no,  139-142,  182,  226, 
229 

Nicholas,  King  of  Montenegro,  135,  354 

Nieuport,  149 

Nish,  captured,  128,  346 

Nitti,  Francesco,  297,  371,  385 

Nivelle,  General,  155,  192,  194,  273,  275- 
276,  292 

Nixon,  Gen.  Sir  John,  137,  142 

NorthclijEfe,  Lord,  193,  197,  208 

Northern  Railway,  damages,  394 

Norway,  acquires  Spitzbergen,  385.  {See 
also  Scandinavia) 

Noske,  Gustav,  364 

Novibazar,  captured,  129 

Novo  Georgievsk,  106 

Noyon,  177,  180;  captured,  273,  306, 
326 

Number g  (Cruiser),  60 

Oath  of  Czech  and  Jugoslav  representatives 

to  dismember  the  Dual  Empire,  350-351 
Ocean  (Warship),  85 
Octobrists,  Russia,  236-237 
Odessa,    raided,    70;     and   Austro-German 

trade,  259 
Oil-wells,    in    Galicia,    102;     in   Rumania, 

192 
Oise,  Battle  of  the,  313-316 
Old  Armenia,  captured,  282 
Omsk,  All-Russian  government,  340 
"Open  door"  for  colonies,  290 
Opium  traffic,  and  the  League  of  Nations 

covenant,  422 
Oppressed  nationalities,  resurgence  of,  348- 

356 
Orange  Free  State,  loyalty,  66 
Orlando,  Vittorio,  297,  368-369,  371,  385 
Orlov,  Colonel,  337 
Orsova,  captured,  187-188 
Ossowietz,  captured,  106-107 


Ostend,  occupied  by  the  Germans,  35-36; 
Allied  objective,  278;  harbor  closed  by 
ships  sunk,  310;    captured,  332 

Otani,  General,  340 

Ottoman  Empire.     {See  Turkey) 

Ourcq  River,  323 

Pacific  islands,  and  Japan,  400 

Pacifism,  199,  212;  and  a  negotiated  peace, 
288;  British,  291;  French,  292;  Italian, 
293;   Russian,  294;   German,  364 

Pact  of  London  (1914),  20,  95 ;  Treaty  of 
London  (1915),  92-93 

Paderewski,  Ignace,  359 

Painleve,  Paul,  276,  293 

Palestine,  Turkish  sovereignty,  136-137; 
British  offensive,  285;  campaign  in, 
285-287;  British  mandatary,  384;  na- 
tionalism, 397;  and  Great  Britain,  399. 
{See  also  Jews) 

Pams,  Jules,  293 

Pan-German  League,  13 

Pan-Slavic  Congress,  350 

Panama,  joins  the  Allies,  218,  271 

Panama  Canal,  neutralization,  254 

Papal  appeals  for  peace,  266 

Papen,  von,  207 

Paper-money  issues,  392 

Paris,  menaced  by  the  Germans,  26,  31, 
74,  147,  301,  314,  320,  323;  War  Coun- 
cil, 169;  Conference  to  Revise  War- 
Aims,  246-247;  Allied  Conference,  272; 
attacked  by  long-range  guns,  304;  Pre- 
liminary Peace  Conference,  304 

Paris  Journal  (Newspaper),  292 

Paris-to-Chalons  railway,  314 

Paris-to-Nancy  railway,  320 

Parliament,  English,  elections,  403 

Pashitch,  Nikola,  265,  354,  368 

Passchendaele  Ridge,  captured,  278-280, 
308,  329 

Pasubio,  Monte,  157 

Patriotic  Auxiliary  Service  Act,  195 

Patrol  boats,  221 

Pau,  Paul,  28 

Pax  Germanica,  143 

Pax  Romana  Germanica,  396 

Payment  of  damages,  by  Germany,  377 

Peace  Conference,  Germany  excluded,  367; 
Preliminary  Peace  Conference,  367- 
372 ;  Supreme  Council,  383.  {See  also 
Brest-Litovsk  Treaty) 

Peace  Conference,  Socialists',  at  Stock- 
holm, 267,  289-292 

Peace  Congress,  220,  290,  292,  398;  hopes 
entertained,  365;  facts  to  be  faced,  366; 
Definitive  Peace  Congress,  372;  and 
Ireland,  397 


454 


INDEX 


Peace,  German.     (See  German  peace) 

Peace,  Soviet,  241;  in  Russia,  259;  papal 
api>eals,  266;  negotiated  peace,  288, 
292 ;  program,  socialist,  conditions  of, 
289-290;  forced  on  Rumania  by  Bucha- 
rest Treaty,  297;  Allied,  325;  terms  sub- 
mitted to  Germany,  372 

"Peace  through  victory,"  293,  297 

Peace  treaties,  Finland  with  Germany, 
Austria  and  Russia,  259;  Allies,  383- 
388.     {See  also  Versailles,  Peace  Treaty) 

"Peace  without  victory,"  21 1-2 12,  288; 
German  championship  of,  297 

Pearse,  Padraic,  161 

Pepper  Ridge,  152-153 

Permanent  Covu-t  of  International  Justice, 
417 

Peronne,  177-178,  272;  captured,  273,  306, 
326 

Pershing,  John  J.,  223,  313,  323 

Persia,  and  Turkey,  136-137 ;  restoration, 
254 ;  nationalism,  397 ;  and  Great  Brit- 
ain, 399 

Persian  Gulf,  137 

Perthes,  capture  of,  114 

Peru,  severs  relations  with  Germany,  271. 
388 

Pessoa,  Epitacio,  368 

Retain,  General,  151,  155,  276,  301,  304- 
305,313,  320-321,  358 

Peter,  King  of  Serbia,  57,  129,  135,  354, 
402 

Petrograd,  and  the  revolution,  227-228, 
230,  232,  245,  247;  Council  of  Work- 
men's Deputies,  228 

Petroseny  coal  basin,  259 

Pflanzer,  General  von,  47,  100, 105 

Philip  II,  of  Spain,  396 

Philippines,  12,  397 

Piave  River,  295-297,  317-320,  352 

Picardy,  Battle  of,  304-313 

Pichon,  Stephen,  293,  368 

"Pillboxes,"  279 

Pilsudski,  General,  196,  350,  359 

Plebiscite,  of  peoples  ceded  to  Poland, 
375;  of  Schleswig,  375;  Saar  basin, 
381 ;  Schleswig  and  Poland,  381 ;  Fiume, 
385 ;  Teschen,  385 

Plevlie,  captured,  135 

Plock,  46 

Ploechti,  captured,  192 

Plumer,  Sir  Herbert,  307,  329 

Plunkett,  Sir  Horace,  310 

Pneumonia,  deaths,  caused  by  war,  390 

Poincar^,  President,  369 

Poisonous  gases,  115-117,  177,  408 

Pojarevatz,  captured,  127 

Pola,  captured,  353 


Poland,  41 ;  invasion  of,  45,  50-55 ;  au- 
tonomy, 53-54,  195-196,  237,  254,  256, 
290,  298,  349-351,  383;  conquered  by 
the  Germans,  102-107,  300;  German 
professions  of  friendship,  145;  committee 
of  National  Defense,  196;  and  Russia, 
230 ;  and  Germany,  266-267 ;  and  Ukrai- 
nia,  270;  territorial  demands,  366,  371; 
acquires  Posen  and  West  Prussia,  etc., 
374;  plebiscite,  381 ;  eastern  boundaries, 
387;  starvation  in,  390;  food  supply, 
393;  nationalism,  397;  republican  gov- 
ernment, 402 

Poles,  of  Galicia,  263 

PoUsh  army,  advancing  towards  Posen, 
359;  statistics,  389 

Political  democracy,  Bolshevist  policy, 
248-249;  general,  402-405 

Polivanov,  General,  109 

Polotzk,  captured,  258 

"Passeront  pas,"  148-155 

Poole,  General,  340 

Populations,  Allied  nations  and  Central 
Powers  compared,  81 

Port  Arthur,  64 

Portugal,  proposed  partition  of  colonies,  6 ; 
enters  the  war,  162-163 ;  royalist  uprising, 
402 

Portuguese  army,  in  France,  308;  losses, 
389 

Posen,  ceded  to  Poland,  374 

Posina,  captured,  174 

Potsdam  Conference  (1914),  14-16 

Power,  Balance  of.     {See  Balance  of  power) 

Powers,  the  Great,  5-6;  at  war,  18;  Five, 
95  ;  changes  in,  398 

Prague,  riots,  349;  Pan-Slavic  Congress, 
350;  Assembly  of  Czechs  and  Jugo- 
slavs at,  350-351 

Prahovo,  captured,  127 

Preliminary  Peace  Conference,  Paris,  367- 
372.     {See  also  Peace  Conference) 

Preparedness,  German  and  Russian,  100; 
U.  S.,  220-224 

Presidential  campaign,  1916,  208 

Press  censorship.     {See  Censorship,  press) 

Preventive  medicine,  development  of,  409 

Pria  Fora,  captured,  157 

Prilep,  captured,  129,  345 

Prinkipo  Island,  conference  of  all-Russian 
factions,  387 

Prints,  destroyed  at  Lou  vain,  377 

Prinz  Eitel  Friedrich  (Cruiser),  61 

Prishtina,  captured,  129 

Prisrend,  captured,  129 

Production,  post-War,  407 

Profit-sharing,  post-War,  407-408 

Profiteering,  post-War,  406 


INDEX 


455 


Profits,  excess,  222;  post-War,  406 
Progressives,  in  Germany,  266-268 
Prohibition  of  alcoholic  beverages,  405 
Proletarian  dictatorship,  249 
Proletariat,  the  governing  class  in  Germany, 

363 
Propaganda,  German,    147,    268,    289-291 ; 

Entente,  207-208;    Allied,  in  U.  S.,  212, 

215;    Allied,  in  Austria,  317;    in  Russia, 

236-239,    241,   245,   255;    Socialist,   254; 

Bolshevist,  255-256,  259,  342;   separatist, 

in  Austria-Hungary,  349 
Proportional  representation,  403-404 
Protopopov,  Minister  of  the  Interior,   194, 

226-227,  237 
Provisional    government,    of    Russia,    229- 

230,     232,     234-237,     239-241,     243-244, 

246-248,   252,  340-341;    of  Austro-Hun- 

garian  peoples,  349 
Prunay,  captured,  321 
Prussia,    constitution,    9;     militarism,    8- 

13,  82;  electoral  reforms,  269,  331 
Przasnysz,  capture  of,  105 
Przemysl,  43-48,  99,  loi 
Pskov,  captured,  258 
Psycho-analysis,  development  of,  409 
Psychology,  scientific  study  of,  409 
Public  works,  destroyed  by  the  Germans, 

394 ;  debts  of  belligerent  nations,  391 
Putilov  Armament  Company,  no 

Quast,  General  von,  303,  307 
Queant,     British      objective,     275;      cap- 
tured, 328 
Queen  Elizabeth  (Warship),  85,  88 
Queen  Mary  (Cruiser),  165 

Rada,  of  the  Little  Russians,  255 

Radek,  Karl,  363 

Radicals,  in  Germany,  266-268;  in  France, 
292 

Radom,  captured,  105 

Radoslavoff,  Premier,  124-125,  344 

Rafa,  railroad  to  Kantara,  285 

Raids  on  coast  towns,  74;  on  Paris,  74; 
air-raids,  390 

Railroad  engineers,  American,  and  the 
Trans-Siberian  railway,  340-341 

Railways,  Poland,  104-107;  Serbia,  127; 
Berlin-to- Constantinople,  134,  136,  282 ; 
Berlin-to-Bagdad,  136-137;  Mecca,  136- 
137;  German,  144;  Sinai  desert,  183, 
282,  285;  Rumania,  188-189;  govern- 
ment control,  U.  S.,  223;  Russia,  228, 
259;  international  control,  290;  France, 
307,  310,  329;  Paris  to  Chalons,  314; 
Paris  to  Nancy,  320;   Siberia,  335,  338- 


341 ;  Murman  railway,  339-34° ;  Bul- 
garia, 345 ;  Austria,  353 ;  German  cars 
surrendered,  357;  stations  destroyed, 
394;  Cape-to-Cairo,  399;  nationaliza- 
tion in  Gt.  Brit.,  406 

Ramadie,  captured,  284 

Rapallo,  Conference  of  France,  Gt.  Brit., 
and  Italy  at,  271 

Rasputin,  Gregory,  225-226 

Rawaruska,  captured,  loi 

Rawlinson,  General,  326,  329 

Rayak,  captured,  347 

Reactionaries,  Germany,  363 

Reconstruction,  political  in  Russia,  237 ; 
of  society,  post- War,  408 

Red  Cross  Society,  410;  organizations, 
and  the  League  of  Nations  covenant, 
422 

Red  flags,  in  Germany,  361-362 

Red  Guards,  247,  250 

Redmond,  John,  66,  159 

Redmond,  Major  William,  278 

Redoubts,  concrete,  279 

Regneville,  captured,  277 

Reichsrat,  Austria,  349-350 

Reichstag,  Germany,  9,  267-268,  300- 
301 

Religious  freedom,  265,  386,  397,  401 

Rennenkampf,  General,  42,  43,  46 

Renner,  Karl,  356 

Republicanism,  and  the  War,  402 

Restoration  of  occupied  territories,  291 

Rethel,  captured,  332 

Rethondes,  armistice  signed  at,  357 

Reval,  captured,  258;  Russian  harbor  zone, 

341 
Reventlow,  213,  267 
Revolution,    French,    and    nationalization, 

3;     industrial,    205.     {See    also    Russia, 

revolution) 
Rheims,  captured,  33-34;    attack  on,  316; 

Cathedral,  394 
Rhine    bridgeheads,     occupied    by    Allied 

troops,  357,  377 
Ribot,  Alexandre,  83,  193,  276,  292-293 
Richebourg  St.  Vaast,  captured,  308 
Riga,    106,   171;    captured,    244;    Russian 

harbor  zone,  341 
Robertson,  169 
Rochambeau,  203 
Rockets,  303 
Rodzianko,  109,  228-229 
Rogers,  D.  G.,  391 
Rohrbach,  Paul,  69 
Roman    Catholic    Church.     (See    Catholic 

Church) 
Romanov     dynasty,     226,     228-229,     232, 

402.     (See  also  Nicholas,  Tsar) 


456 


INDEX 


Rome,  Congress  of  Oppressed  Nationali- 
ties, 350 

Roon,  8 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  208 

Root,  Elihu,  208,  235 

Roques,  General,  166,  193 

Rostov,  255 

Roubaix,  captured,  332 

Roulers,  captured,  332 

Rovereto,  91,  156 

Roye,  captured,  326 

Rumania,  and  Russia,  47;  and  Bulgaria, 
84;  and  the  Entente,  84;  keeps  peace, 
96;  neutrality,  11 2-1 13;  territorial 
demands,  123-124,  366;  enters  the 
War,  181-191 ;  railroads,  188;  collapses, 
191;  truce  with  Central  Powers,  253; 
restoration  of  territory,  254,  298;  Allied 
failure,  282;  treaty  of  Bucharest,  297, 
346;  vanquished,  300;  reenters  the 
War,  346;  autonomy,  349;  territorial 
demands,  371 ;  treaty  not  ratified,  383 ; 
food  supply,  393;  nationalism,  397; 
universal  suffrage,  404 

Rumanian  army,  losses,  189,  389;  repels 
Mackensen's  attack,  243 

Rumans  of  Transylvania  and  Bukowina, 
47,  263 

Rupprecht,  Crown  Prince  of  Bavaria,  27, 
29,  36,  150,  18s,  304 

Russia,  alliances  with  France  and  Great 
Britain,  6,  69;  approach  of  the  War,  15- 
20,  24-25  ;  German  plans  for  invasion  of, 
40;  imperialism,  54-55,  202;  invasion 
of  Galicia,  80;  outlet  for  grain  trade, 
83;  retreats,  99-120;  Duma,  107,  109- 
III,  194,  225-230,  232,  234,  236;  polit- 
ical imrest,  107-112;  condition  of 
peasants,  108;  Revolution,  111-112, 
197,  203,  217,  225-260,  262,  269;  de- 
clares war  against  Bulgaria,  125-126; 
isolation,  144;  War  Industries  Com- 
mittee, 194;  Union  of  Municipalities, 
194,  225;  and  Poland,  195-196;  and 
the  German  peace,  198 ;  revolts  and  makes 
"peace,"  225-260;  Council  of  the  Em- 
pire, 225 ;  destruction  of  autocracy, 
the  March  (1917)  revolution,  225-331; 
Committee  of  Workmen,  227;  Council 
of  Workmen's  Deputies,  228;  Constit- 
uent Assembly,  228-229,  244,  248- 
252,  341 ;  Provisional  Government,  229- 
248,  252,  340-341;  disintegration  of 
democracy;  political  and  military  ex- 
periments, 231-246;  war-weariness,  233; 
territorial  demands,  233,  252-253;  rail- 
roads, 243  ;  Council  of  National  Defense, 
245;  Preliminary  Parliament,  246;  dicta- 


torship   of    the    Bolsheviki;     the    Nov. 
(1917)   revolution,    246-252;     Council  of 
the    People's    Commissioners,    247 ;    All- 
Russian  Extraordinary  Commission,  249; 
Socialist     Federated     Soviet     RepubUc, 
constitution,     249;      defection    of;      the 
Treaty   of  Brest-Litovsk,    252-260;    dis- 
integration,   255;   out  of  the  War,    257- 
258;    Russo-German    commercial    treaty 
of   1904,.   259;    manufacturing  industries, 
259;    repudiation  of  foreign  debt,    260; 
restoration  of  all  territory,   298;    indem- 
nity to  Germany,  341 ;    AU-Russian  gov- 
ernment,   341 ;     public    debt,    391-392 ; 
nationaUsm,  396-397 
Russia,  Little,  independence,  238,  255 
Russia,  White,  self-determination,  336 
Russian    army,    organization,     23 ;     mobi- 
lization, 41-43;    position,  49-52;    battle- 
lines,  51,  104,  107,  171;    losses,  51,  loi, 
108,    258,    389;     equipment,    105;     reor- 
ganization,   171;     undermined    by    Ger- 
man  propaganda,    238;     renewed    activ- 
ity,  241-243 ;    demobilization,   258 
Russian  Church,  Bolshevist  policy,  248 
Russian  navy,  victory,  Aug.  20,  1915,  106 
Russo-Japanese   war,    contrasted   with   the 

Great  War,  108 
Ruthenians,    autonomy,    238,    349;      Con- 
gress at  Kiev,  238;    of  GaUcia,  263,  385 
Ruzsky,  General,  44,  46,  51,  228-229 

Saar  Basin,  370,  375;    Commission,  381 

Saarbriicken,  occupied  by  Allies,  358 

Saarburg,  captured,  22,  28 

Saillisel,  captured,  180 

SaiUy,  captured,  180 

St.  Germain,  treaty  signed  by  Austria  at, 

383 
St.  Gobain,  emplacement  of   German  long 

range  guns  at,  304 
St.    Mihiel,     34;     salient,     114-115;     cap- 

tvired,  328-329 
St.  Quentin,  captured,  39,  329 
St.  Quentin  (Mont),  captured,  273 
Saionji,  Marquis,  368-369 
Sakharov,  Vladimir,  188 
Salandra,  Premier,  94,  158 
Salaries,  post-War,  406 
Salonica,     129-136,     183,     185,     191,     284, 

344 

Salvation  Army,  410 

Samara,  137,  captured,  284,  338 

Samoa,  surrenders,  67 ;  cession  to  New  Zea- 
land, 375 

Samogneux,  captured,  277 

San,  Battle  of  the,  loi 

San  Domingo.     {See  Santo  Domingo) 


INDEX 


457 


San  Giovanni  di  Medua,  135 

San  Giuliano,  Marquis,  90 

San  Michele,  Monte,  176 

Sanders,  Liman  von,  88,  347 

Sanitation,  development  of,  409 

Sanna-i-yat,  141 ;  captured,  283 

Santo  Domingo,  German  conspirators, 
207;  severs  relations  with  Germany, 
271,  388 

Sari-Bair,  122 

Sarrail,  General,  33,  131-133;  183,  185, 
189-191,  262,  284-285 

Saverne  aSair,  9 

Sazonov,  194 

Scandinavia,  loss  of  trade,  79;  reduction 
of  armaments,  360.  {See  also  Denmark, 
Norway,  Sweden) 

Scapa  Flow,  German  navy,  at  359 

Scarborough,  raided,  74 

Scharnhorst,  General,  8 

Scharnhorst  (Cruiser),  60 

Scheer,  Vice-Admiral  von,  165 

Scheidemann,  Philip,  166,  267,  289,  331, 
360,  363-364.  372 

Scheldt  River,  freed  from  Dutch  restric- 
tions, 385 

Schleswig.  cession  to  Denmark,  360,  375, 
397;  plebiscite,  381 

Schools,  and  the  Allied  peace  treaties, 
386 ;  among  the  troops  at  the  front,.  410 

Science  and  education,  408-410 

''Scrap  of  paper,"  19,  91-92 

Scrutin  de  liste,  403 

Scutari,  captured,  135 

Sea,  power,  importance  of,  58-62 ;  diffi- 
culties at,  in  1 91 6,  162-167.  (See  also 
Freedom  of  the  seas) 

Secret  pacifist  campaign  in  Italy,  293 ; 
diplomacy  to  be  abolished,  298 

Secret  treaties.  Treaty  of  London,  20, 
92^3,  95 ;  Bulgaria  with  Austria-Hun- 
gary, and  Turkey,  84,  125;  Entente, 
220,  252-253,  367 ;  forbidden  at  the  Brest- 
Litovsk  Conference,  254;  Japan  and  the 
Entente,  370 

Security  League,  Germany,  13 

Sedan,  captured,  39,  332 

Sedd-el-Bahr,  85-86,  88 

Seidler,  Dr.  von,  265,  269-270,  349-350 

Seisemol,  Monte,  352 

Seitz,  Karl,  356 

Selective  Service  Act,  U.  S.,  222 

Self-determination,  396-397;  Russia,  233; 
White  Russia,  336;  Congress  held  in 
Rome,  350;  Ireland,  387 

Self-interest,  in  pre-War  economics,  1-7 

Semendria,  captured,  127 

Semenov,  General,  337 


Semlin,  fall  of,  56 

Serajevo,  14 

Serbia,  14-20;  enters  the  War,  17-18, 
20;  security  of,  55-57;  and  the  Allies, 
73,  95-96;  vanquished,  126,  300;  troops 
assembled  against,  131;  territorial  de- 
mands, 254,  298,  366,  371 ;  Allied  failure, 
282;  evacuation  by  Bulgars,  345;  inde- 
pendence, 263,  383;  food  supply,  393; 
nationalism,  397 

Serbian  army,  battle-lines,  127-128,  132; 
losses,  56-57,  126,  389 

Serbians,  dead  through  disease  or  massacre, 
390 

Sereth  River,  173-174;  Battle  of,  243 

Sergy,  captured,  323 

Seringes,  captured,  323 

Sezanne,  32 

Shabatz,  Battle  of,  56 

Shantung  railway,  63-64;  and  Japan, 
220,  370,  375,  380-381,  400 

Shingarev,  Minister  of  agriculture,  230 

Shipbuilding,  program,  U.  S.,  223;  Gt. 
Brit.,  andU.  S.,  322 

Shipping  act,  U.  S.,  222 

Shipping,  German  rules  for  safety  against 
submarines,  214-215;  destroyed,  216, 
220-224,  394-395;  damages  paid  by 
Germany,  377 

Ships,  German,  seized,  222 

Shop-stewards,  post- War,  407 

Shumran  Peninsula,  captured,  283 

Siam,  enters  the  War,  271 ;  German  rights 
renounced,  375 

Siberia,  liberation  of  prisoners,  230;  in- 
dependence, 255;  Trans-Siberian  rail- 
way, 338,  340-341 ;  and  Mittel-Europa, 
355;  and  the  Soviets,  337;  Temporary 
Siberian  government,  341 ;  and  Japan, 
400 

Sick  Man  of  the  East,  347 

Siegfried  Line.     {See  Hindenburg  Line) 

Silesia,  occupied  by  Czechoslovaks,  359 

Simbirsk,  captured,  338 

Sinai  Desert,  railroad,  282-283,  cam- 
paign, 285 

Sinha,  Sir  S.  P.,  368 

Sinn  Fein  Rebellion,  158-161,  310-312, 
387,  403 

Sixtus,  Prince  of  Bourbon,  266 

Skobelev,  Minister  of  Labor,  234 

Skoropadsky,  Dictator  of  Ukrainia,  334,  359 

Skouloudis,  Premier,  132 

Slave  trade,  and  the  League  of  Nations 
covenant,  401,  421 

Slavic  Peril,  13,  24,  266 

Slavs,  German  domination,  263 

Slovakia,  cession  to  Czechoslovakia,  384 


458 


INDEX 


Slovaks  of  Hungary,  rebellion,  263 

Slovenes,  independence,  263;  Jugoslav 
control,  354 

Small  holdings,  post-War,  407 

Smuts,  General,  67-68,  368,  374 

Smyrna,  and  Greece,  87,  123,  366;  Greek 
mandatary,  384 

Social  Democratic  Party  in  Russia,  108, 
no,  232,  236,  239 

Social  Democrats,  in  Germany  11,  21,  166- 
167;  in  Austria,  356 

Social  imrest,  377-378;  tendencies,  post- 
War,  406-408;  Catholics,  post- War, 
407,  410;  sciences,  scientific  study  of, 
409 

Socialism,  in  commerce,  1-7;  in  Belgium, 
27;  in  Germany,  82,  152,  266-268,  290, 
299,  331,  356,  360-364,  372-373;  in 
France,  197,  290;  in  Russia,  239,  289, 
336,  398;  propaganda,  in  Russia,  254; 
a  negotiated  peace,  288-289;  Christian, 
in  Austria,  356;  in  Hungary,  384;  post- 
war, 406-407 

Socialist  Revolutionary  Party  in  Russia, 
232,  239 

Socialists'  International  Peace  Conference, 
at  Stockholm,  267,  289-292 

Sociology,  scientific  study  of,  409 

Sofia,  Secret  Convention  of  Bulgaria,  and 
the  Dual  Monarchy  at,  125 

Sofia-to-Berlin,  railroads,  282 

Soissons,  captured,  315,  323 

Sokal,  in  Russian  hands,  44,  loi 

Soldiers'  and  sailors'  insurance  act,  U.  S., 
222 

Solf,  W.  S.,  331 

Solomon  Islands,  67 

Somaliland,  Italy's  hold  on,  400 

Somme  Drive,  177-182 

Sommeilles,  destruction  of,  38 

Sonnino,  Sidney,  90,  158,  198,  297,  368, 
371 

Sophia,  Queen  of  Greece,  123 

Souchez,  captured,  118 

Soukhomlinov,  General,  109,  226 

Sounds  in  water,  detection  of,  409 

South  Africa.     (See  Africa,  South) 

South  Sea  islands,  loss  of,  by  the  Germans, 
67 

Souville,  Fort,  155 

Soviets,  228,  232-234,  237,  240-241,  244- 
249 ;  Congress  of,  247 ;  constitution,  249 ; 
Declaration  of  the  rights  of  the  people, 
250-252 ;  accepts  German  peace  terms, 
258;  peace  with  Finland,  259 ;  andMittel- 
Europa,  335-336,  341 ;  treaties  with 
Ukrainia  and  Finland,  336;  and  Ger- 
man socialism,  364 ;  in  Hungary,  384 


Spa,  headquarters  of  William  II,  304; 
secret  German  conference  at,  327-328; 
flight  of  WilHam  II  to,  360 

Spain,  loss  of  trade,  79 ;  reduction  of  arma- 
ments, 360;  anti-royaUst  demonstra- 
tions, 402 

Spargo,  John,  Bolshevism,  250 

Spartacus  group  of  socialists,  362-363, 
373 

Spee,  Admiral  von,  60 

Spinning  industry  destroyed,  394 

SpirituaUsm,  and  the  War,  411 

Spitzbergen,  cession  to  Norway,  385 

"Spurlos  versenkt,"  271 

Stalemate  and  the  Teutonic  Peace  Drive, 
191-200 

Stanislau,  captured,  243 

Starvation,  and  the  War,  390;  in  Armenia, 
393 

State-system  of  Germany,  398;  inter- 
vention in  labor  disputes,  406,  408; 
socialism,  post- War,  406-407 

Steamships,  German  rules  for  safety  against 
submarines,  214-215 

Stevens,  John  R.,  340 

Stockholm,  SociaUsts'  International  Peace 
Conference  at,  267,  289-292 

Straits,  neutralization  of,  254 

Strassburg,  captured,  22,  358 

Strikes,  U.  S.,  207;  in  Russia,  225,  227 

Strumnitza,  captured,  345 

Stryj,  captured,  loi 

Sturdee,  Vice-Admiral,  60 

Stiirgkh,  Karl,  264 

Sturmer,  Boris,  111-112,  194,  226,  237 

Sturmtruppen,  302,  306 

Styr  River,  176 

Submarine  cables,  surrendered  by  Ger- 
many, 377 

Submarines,  75-78,  82,  149,  152,  160,  162- 
166,  206,  212-224,  261,  266-268,  271- 
272,  278,  287-288,  300,  308,  322,  332, 
339,  353,  357,  359,  376,  390;  bases  for, 
35;  British,  88;  losses  from  sinkings 
by,  322 ;  development  of,  408 

Suez  Canal,  attacks  by  Turks,  72 ;  283, 
German  control,  137;  neutralization,  254 

Suez-to-Singapore  project,  72 

Suffrage,  Soviet  restrictions,  241 ;  in  Gt. 
Brit.,  262 ;  in  Jugoslavia,  265 ;  in  Ger- 
many, 361-362;  universal,  403-404. 
{See  also  Electoral  reforms.  Woman 
suffrage) 

Supreme  Allied  Council,  374 

Supreme  Council  of  Ten,  of  the  Preliminary 
Peace  Conference,  370 

Supreme  Council  of  the  Peace  Conference, 
383 


INDEX 


459 


Supreme  War  Council,  Inter- Allied,  271- 
272,  312,  369 

Surgery,  military,  development  of,  409 

Sussex  (Steamboat),  163-164 

Suvla  Bay,  122,  133 

Suwalki,  43 

Sweden,  submarine  restrictions,  163;  anti- 
royalist  demonstrations,  402.  {See  also 
Scandinavia) 

Switzerland,  reduction  of  armaments,  360; 
supplying  food  to  the  Tyrol,  393 

Syria,  Turkish  sovereignty,  136;  mas- 
sacres and  starvation  in,  390;  French 
mandatary,  384,  400 

Taft,  William  H.,  208 

Tagliamento  River,  295-296 

Tahure,  captured,  118,  321 

Talaat  Pasha,  347 

Tank  warfare,  177-178,  180,  323,  408 

Tannenberg,  Battle  of,  53 

Tardenois,  captured,  323 

Tarififs,  most-favored-nation,  377 

Tarnopol,  captured,  44,  243;  Russian 
control,  loi 

Tarnow,  occupied  by  the  Germans,  loi 

Taxes,  income  tax,  222;  war,  392 

Tchaikovsky,  Nicholas,  340 

Tcheidze  (Soviet  leader),  234,  239,  245, 
247 

Tchemov,  Victor,  234,  239-240,  341 

Telephone,  wireless,  development  of,  409 

Ten,  Supreme  Council  of,  of  the  Prelim- 
inary Peace  Conference,  370 

Teodorov,  General,  127 

Terestchenko,  Minister  of  Finance,  230, 
234 

Tergnier,  captured,  273 

Teschen,  plebiscite,  385 

Texas,  as  bribe  to  Mexico,  216 

Thann,  34 

"They  shall  not  pass,"  148-155 

Thiaumont  redoubt,  155 

Thiepval,  captured,  180 

Thomas,  Albert,  169,  193,  235 

Thomas,  Rear- Admiral  Sir  Hugh,  165 

Thorn,  42 

Thrace,  cession  to  Bulgaria,  84,  87;  ces- 
sion to  Greece,  366,  383;  and  Turkey, 
343 ;  cession  to  the  Allies,  383 

Three,  Council  of,  370 

Tiberias,  captured,  347 

Tirpitz,  Admiral  von,  59,  152,  163-164, 
213,  267 

Tisza,  Count,  102,  265 

Tittoni,  Tommaso,  371 

Togoland,  67;  partitioned,  375;  man- 
datary under  France,  400 


Tolmino,  cession  to  Italy,  91 

Tomba,  Monte,  captiured,  296 

Tomsk,  Temporary  Government  of  Au- 
tonomous Siberia  at,  337 

Torcy,  captured,  323 

Torpedoes,  North  Sea,  59 ;  vessek  sunk 
by,  395 

Toul,  18,  31 

Tourcoing,  captured,  332 

Townshend,  General,  137-139,  141-142, 
183,  283,  347 

Trade.     {See  Commerce) 

Trade-unions,  Germany,  363;  post- War, 
406,  408 

Trading-with-the-enemy  act,  U.  S.,  222 

Trans-Siberian  railway,  338;  and  Ameri- 
can engineers,  340-341 

Transit,  freedom  of,  and  the  League  of 
Nations  Covenant,  422 

Transportation,  maritime,  169;  govern- 
ment control,  406 

Transvaal,  loyalty,  66 

Transylvania,  47,  123,  186-187;  union 
with  Rumania,  354;  cession  to  Ru- 
mania, 384 

Treaties,  U.  S.,  with  France,  promising 
aid  against  Germany,  381;  signed  by 
Austria  and  Bulgaria,  383;  action,  of 
U.  S.,  on  Allied  peace  treaties,  387;  Arti- 
cles 18-21  in  the  League  of  Nations 
covenant,  420.     {See  also  Secret  treaties) 

Treaty  of  Brest-Li  to  vsk.  {See  Brest- 
Litovsk  Treaty) 

Treaty  of  Bucharest,  259,  297,  300,  317, 
346,  357,  364 

Treaty  of  London,  20,  92-93,  95 

Treaty  of  Peace,  Versailles,  357,  374 

Treaty,  peace,  Finland,  with  Germary, 
Austria  and  Russia,  259;  Allies,  with 
Austria,  386 

Trebizond,  captured,  140 

Trench  warfare,  36,  45,  51,  80,  11 3-1 20, 
122,  133,  150,  153,  175-178,  192,  223, 
242,  273,  279,  300,  328 

Trent,  91;  autonomy,  254;  captured, 
352 

Trentino,  91-97,  102,  156-158;  174-175, 
253 ;  and  Pope  Benedict,  291 

Trepov,  Alexander,  194,  226 

Trieste,  91,  94;  autonomy,  254;  captured, 
352 

Triple  Alliance,  Italy  with  Central  Powers, 
90;   of  France  with  Gt.  Brit.,  and  U.  S., 

383 
Tripoli,    captured,    347;     Italy's   hold   on, 

400 
Triumph  (Battleship),  88 
Troesnes,  captured,  315 


460 


INDEX 


Trotsky,  Leon,  240-241,  244,  247,  250, 
252-253,  257,  338,  384 

Troyon,  34  '^\ 

Trumbitch,  Anton,  265,  354 

Tsars,  231,  237,  248-249,  257,  260 

Tseretelli,  Minister  of  Posts  and  Telegraphs, 
234,  239,  241,  245 

Tsing-tao  (Fortress),  63-64 

Turin,  riots,  293 

Turkestan,  independence,  255 

Turkey,  in  1912,  6;  and  Germany,  1896- 
1914,  12,  69-73;  enters  the  War,  60,  70- 
71 ;  and  the  Dardanelles,  83 ;  partition  of, 
92 ;  effect  of  entry  into  the  War  upon  the 
Balkan  States,  121 ;  treaty  with  Bulgaria, 
125;  made  a  military  base,  134-135; 
autonomy  of  peoples,  298;  dismember- 
ment, 300,  396;  surrenders,  342-348; 
"Sick  Man  of  the  East,"  347;  conclusion 
of  peace,  384;  disrupted,  396;  national- 
ism, 396-397;  mandataries,  401,  421. 
{See  also  Young  Turks) 

Turkish  army,  defeated,  139-140;  losses, 
140,  283,  347,  389;  to  be  demobilized,  348 

Turkish  atrocities,  82;  famine  and  mas- 
sacres, 390 

Turnu-Severin,  captured,  188 

Typhus,  in  Serbia,  57 

Tyrol,  93 ;   food  supply,  393 

Tyrwhitt,  Admiral,  359 

Udine,  captured,  295,  352 
Ufa,  National  Convention  at,  341 
Ukrainia,   autonomy,    238,    263,    349,    359; 
People's  Republic,  255,  257;   and  Poland, 
270;      vanquished,     300;      and     Mittel- 
Europa,   334;    territorial  demands,   371; 
starvation    in,    390;      nationalism,     397; 
repubUcan  form  of  government,  402 
Ukrainians,  weakening  loyalty  to  Russia,  54 ; 

of  Eastern  GaUcia,  385 
Ulster  rebellion,  Ireland,  158-161,  310-312, 

387,  403 
Ulyanov,  Vladimir.  {See  Lenin,  Nikolai) 
Union  of  Municipalities,  Russia,  194,  225 
United  States,  transportation  of  munitions 
and  suppUes,  62,  65,  75,  83,  100,  261 ;  aid 
counted  on  by  Germany,  75;  right  of 
neutral  trade,  76-;  loss  of  trade,  78-79; 
and  the  Grand  Fleet,  162-167;  as  an 
enemy  of  Germany,  163;  proposed  reUef 
for  Poland,  196-197;  intervention  in  the 
War,  200-224;  isolation,  or  a  League  of 
Nations,  201-212;  alliance  with  France, 
203;  feeling  towards  Gt.  Brit.,  204; 
feeling  towards  Germany,  204,  206;  trade 
in  .munitions,  206 ;  and  unrestricted  sub- 
marine warfare,  213-219;  enters  the  War, 


218;  at  war  with  Austria-Hungary,  218, 
266;  preparedness,  219-224;  Committee 
on  Public  Information,  222;  Selective 
Service  Act,  222;  joins  Allies,  271;  aid 
to  AUies,  287-288;  not  represented  at 
Stockholm  Peace  Conference,  290;  delay 
in  giving  aid  to  Allies,  297,  300 ;  no  terri- 
torial ambitions,  366-367;  alliance  with 
Gt.  Brit,  and  France,  370,  383 ;  treaty 
with  France  promising  aid  against  Ger- 
many, 381 ;  ratification  of  Treaty  of 
Versailles,  382 ;  action  on  Allied  peace 
treaties,  387 ;  public  debt,  391-392 ;  loans 
to  Allies,  392  ;  imperiahsm,  400 

United  States  army,  American  Expeditionary 
Force,  219,  261,  329;  transportation  sta- 
tistics, 219,  322;  mobilization,  222;  selec- 
tive draft,  222  ;  arrival  in  France,  223  ;  at 
Chateau-Thierry,  316;  at  the  Second 
Battle  of  the  Marne,  321-323;  battle- 
line,  323;  aid  to  Allies,  326-327;  at  St. 
Mihiel,  329;   in  Coblenz,  359;   losses,  389 

United  States  navy,  224;   losses,  395 

Unity  of  command,  168-169 ;  German  army, 
144,  302  ;  Supreme  War  Council,  271-272  ; 
Allied  armies,  277,  312-313 

Universal  suffrage.     {See  Suffrage) 

Unrest,  social,  377-378 

Urbal,  General  d',  118 

Uruguay,  severs  relations  with  Germany^ 
271,  388 

Uskub,  captured,  127 

Valenciennes,  captured,  30,  39,  332 

Valievo,  56 

Valois,  captured,  323 

Vandervelde,  Emile,  27,  235,  289,  368 

Vardar  (Battle),  132 

Vaux,  captured,  155,  192 

Veles,  captured,  127 

Venereal  disease,  409 

Venezuela,  and  Germany  in  1903,  12 

Venice,  menaced,  296,  318 

Venizelos,  Eleutherios,  84,  87,  95,  123,  129- 
134,  190-191,  284-285,  344,  368 

Verdun,  18,  31-34,  148-155,  182,  184,  277, 
281 

Versailles,  Peace  Treaty,  357;  Peace  Con- 
gress, 367 ;  submission  of  peace  terms  to 
Germany  at,  372;  Treaty  of,  signed,  374; 
Covenant,  398 

Vervins,  captured,  39 

Vesle  River,  314 

Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Italy,  176 

Vienna,  to  Constantinople,  railroads,  282; 
Revolution,  355  ;   food  supply,  393 

Vigilancia  (ship),  216 

Vigneuilles,  captured,  329 


INDEX 


461 


Villers  Cotterets  Forest,  322 

Vilna,  captured,  107 

Vimy  Ridge,  118;  captured,  275,  277 

Vishegrad,  57 

Viviani,  Rene,  83,  145,  220 

Vladivostok,  Temporary  Government  of 
Autonomous  Siberia  at,  337;  captured, 
338;   Allied  Expeditionary  Force  at,  339- 

341 
Volhynia,  173 
Volo,  claptured,  284 
Vologodsky,  Peter,  341 
Vouziers,  captured,  332 
Vulcan  Pass,  188 

Wages,  and  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  378; 
post- War,  406 

Wallachia,  captured,  188-189 

War,  the  {See  Great  War) 

War-aims.  Conference  to  Revise,  at  Paris, 
246-247 

War-aims,  reply  of  Allies  and  Central  Powers 
to  President  Wilson's  note  on,  209-210; 
Allies',  253,  272,  297-298 

War  Cabinet,  Allied,  404 

War  Council,  Anglo-French,  169 

War  credits,  21;  zone,  around  the  British 
Isles,  76,  78;  loans  in  Germany,  81; 
service  in  Germany,  195;  material,  Ger- 
many not  to  produce,  375;  material, 
manufacture  of,  415-416;  taxes,  392; 
profits,  taxes  on,  392;  psychology,  405- 
406;  industries,  government  control  of, 
406 

War  Industries  Committee,  Russia,  194,  225 

War-weariness,  197,  212;  in  Great  Britain, 
146-147;  in  Russia,  233,  247,  252;  in 
Germany,  266,  372;  Allies,  287-288,  297; 
in  France,  291 ;   in  Bulgaria,  343 

Warsaw,  46;  German  drive  against,  51-52; 
defended,  99 ;  a  railway  center,  104 ;  cap- 
tured, 105-106 

Washington,  George,  203-204,  211,  400 

Water,  detection  of  sounds  in,  409 

Water-supply,  at  Gallipoli,  122 

Weapons,  development  of,  408 

Weimar,  National  Assembly  at,  363 

Wettin,  House  of,  402 

Wheat,  Rumanian  and  Wallachian,  192 

Whitby,  raided,  74 

White,  Henry,  368 

White  Guards,  Finland,  334-335 


White  Russia,  self-determination,  336 

Whitlock,  Brand,  39 

Wieringen,  refuge  of  the  German  Crown 
Prince,  362 

Wilhelmina,  Queen  of  the  Netherlands,  377 

Wilhelmina  (Steamship),  76 

Wilhelmshaven,  59 

William  I,  of  Germany,  361,  367 

William  II,  of  Germany,  64,  259,  267,  270, 
304,  317,  320,  325,  327-328,  334-336,  342, 
356,  360-362,  364,  377,  396 

Wilson,  Sir  Henry,  272,  313 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  79,  164,  208-212,  215- 
218,  244,  262,  266,  291,  297-298,  312, 
331-332,  347,  352,  356-357,  367-371,  374, 
379-387,  415 

Windau,  captured,  105;  Russian  harbor 
zone,  341 

Wireless  telephone,  221,  409 

Wittelsbach,  House  of,  402 

Woevre  plain,  1 51-15  2 

Woman  suffrage,  262,  403.  {See  also  Elec- 
toral reforms ;   Suffrage) 

Women,  members  of  the  German  National 
Assembly,  364;  League  of  Nations,  posi- 
tions open  to,  415;  traffic  in,  and  the 
League  of  Nations  covenant,  422 

Workmen's  Deputies,  Council  of,  228 

World-dominion,  58,  201-202,  211,  396,  411 

World  made  safe  for  democracy,  217 

Woyrsch,  General,  52,  100,  105 

Wytschaete,  captured,  278,  308 

Yarmouth,  raided,  74 

Yellow  Peril,  64 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  410 

Young  Turks  Party,  70-71,  82,  282,  343,  347 

Ypres,  35-36,  1 1 5-1 1 6,  278-280 

Yudenitch,  General,  140 

Zabem.     {See  Saveme) 

Zaimis,  Premier,  285 

Zamosc,  capture  of,  105 

Zara,  raided  by  D'Annunzio,  385-386 

Zeebrugge,  35-36,  278;  harbor  closed  by 
ships  sunk  at,  310;   captured,  332 

Zemstvos,  All- Russian  Union  of,  194 

Zenson,  captured,  296 

Zeppelins,  74 

Zimmermann,  Alfred,  197,  216 

Zionism,  287,  397.  {See  also  Jews;  Pales- 
tine) 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


^ 


^ 


^ 


14  DAY  USE 

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